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Y 



GRIGGS'S 

GERMAN PHILOSOPHICAL CLASSICS 

FOR ENGLISH READERS AND STUDENTS. 

Under the Editorial Supervision of Professor G. S. Morris, Ph.D. 

DEVOTED TO A CRITICAL EXPOSITION OF THE MASTER-PIECES 
OP GERMAN THOUGHT. 

I. KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. A Critical Exposi- 
tion. By George S. Morris, Ph.D. $1.25 

II. SCHELLING'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM. A Critical 
Exposition. By John Watson, LL.D., Professor of Philosophy 
Queen's University, Kingston, Canada 1,25 

in. FICHTE'S SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. A Critical Exposition. 
By C. C. Everett, D.D., Professor of Theology, Harvard Uni- 
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IV. HEGEL" S ESTHETICS. A Critical Exposition. By J. S. Ked- 
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bault, Minn. 1.25 

V. KANT'S ETHICS. A Critical Exposition By President Noah 

Porter, D.D., LL.D 1.25 

VI. HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE STATE AND OF HISTORY. 

A Critical Exposition. By George S. Morris, Ph.D. . . 1.25 

VII. LEIBNIZ'S NEW ESSAYS CONCERNING THE HUMAN 
UNDERSTANDING. A Critical Exposition. By John Dewey, 
Ph.D., of the University of Michigan 1.25 

Vin. HEGEL'S LOGIC. A Book on the Genesis of the Categories of 
the Mind. A Critical Exposition. By William T. Harris, 

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THE WORLD ENERGY AND ITS SELF-CONSERVATION. By Wil- 
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SEMITIC PHILOSOPHY. Showing the Ultimate Social and Scientijflc 
Outcome of Original Christianity in its Conflict with Surviving An- 
cient Heathenism. By Philip C. Friese. 12mo, cloth. . . . 1.00 

BRITISH THOUGHT AND THINKERS. Introductory Studies. Criti- 
cal, Biographical, and Philosophical. By Professor George S. 

Morris. 12mo, cloth. 1.50 

"It is a critical study of the leading features and development of 
our great schools of -philosoithj. ''—Udinburgh Scotsman. 

DEMOSTHENES. A Study of Political Eloquence in Greece. With 
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"One of the grandest studies ever made of the great Greek 
orator." — Le Fays., Paris. 

A MANUAL OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE. Comprising Biographi- 
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with Illustrative Extracts from Their Works. Also a Brief Survey 
of the Rise and Progress of the Various forms of Literature, with 
Descriptions of the Minor Authors. By Charles Morris. 12mo, 
420 pages 1.50 

S. C. GKIGGS AND CO., Pdblishebs. 



A STUDY OF 



GREEK PHILOSOPHY 



BY 



/ 



ELLEIT M. MITCHELL. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 



Bt WILLIAM EOUNSEVILLE ALGEE. 



,*^^'^^,°:.'°'^«>?. 






COPY"'^ '^'f-V 



CT 5 1891 



CHICAGO: 

S. C. GEIGGS AND COMPANY. 

1891. 



t»-» 



AM 



ITHE LIBRAHTl 
OF CONGRESS 

iWAS HIHGTOIl l 

SSSSSSSSSSSSBSBS 



Copyright, 1891, 
By S. C GRIGGS & COMPANY. 



PRESS OF KNIGHT, LEONARD & CO., CHICAGO. 



TO 



THE KANT CLUB OP DENVEE 



THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED. 



s 



PREFACE. 



IT may be interesting to my readers to know some- 
thing of the genesis of this book. Twelve years 
ago, in St. Louis, a little band of women used to as- 
semble every week to study and discuss the problems 
of philosophy. I led the circle as teacher and learner. 
Beginning with the study of Greek thought, and apply- 
ing myself diligently to the works of its great masters, 
and the commentaries to be found in English, German 
and French, I sought continually to make clear to 
others what became clear to myself. At the end of 
two years, the circle in St. Louis was exchanged for 
one in Denver, but with unabated interest and enthu- 
siasm on my own part and that of my co-workers. At 
their request, the verbal exposition became a written one, 
and finally developed into its present form. Whatever 
merit it possesses is due in part to those who have 
helped me towards the light by their eager questions, 
their hesitation at the obscure, their quick appreciation 
of spiritual truth hidden beneath abstruse phraseology, 
their loving fellowship and sympathy. 

Above all other teachers I am indebted to Dr. Wil- 
liam T. Harris. From him I first learned to seek phi- 
losophy in the history of philosophy, and to find it every- 
where as the spiritual interpretation of the universe. I 
have also received help and stimulus from the exposi- 



VI PREFACE. 

tions and lectures of Prof. F. Louis Soldan, of St. Louis; 
Prof. D. J. Snider, of Chicago; Prof. Thomas Davidson, 
of New York; from the Concord School of Philosophy, 
and the Kant Club, of Denver. 

I have consulted all the accessible authorities, but 
have relied chiefly on the histories of Greek philosophy 
by Zeller and Hegel. The quotations are from the ori- 
ginal German, except where T have availed myself of 
those of Dr. Harris, in his translation of HegeFs chap- 
ters on Plato and Aristotle, published in The Journal of 
Speculative Philosophy, The greater part of Zeller's 
work is to be found in an English translation, but not 
that of Hegel, with the above exception. 

In order not to encumber my pages with notes and 
quotation marks, I here acknowledge my general indebt- 
edness to Zeller and Hegel, and append a list of the 
most important works that I have read and studied in 
the prosecution of my task. 

Elle:n^ M. Mitchell. 

Stbacuse, N. Y., August, 1891. 



A LIST OF REFERENCE BOOKS ON GREEK 
PHILOSOPHY. 



Die Phtlosophie der Griechen, eine Untersuchung uber 
Character, GtAng und Hauptmomente ihrer Entwickelung. 
By Ed. Zeller. English translation of a part of this work by Sarah 
F. Alleyne, 0. J. Reichel, Alfred Goodwin, and Evelyn Abbott. 

VORLESUNGEN UBER DIE GeSCHICHTE DER PhILOSOPHIE. By G. 

W. Hegel. English translation of the chapters on Plato and Aris- 
totle by Dr. William T. Harris, in TJie Journal of Speculative 
Philosophy, 

Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss. By Albert Schwegler. 
Two English translations, the first by J. H. Sterling, the second by 
J. H. Seelye. 

History of Philosophy. From Thales to the Present Time. 
By Friedrich Ueberweg. English translation by Prol George S. 
Morris. 

Geschichte der Philosophie. By J. E. Erdmann. English 
translation, edited by Prof. Williston S. Hough. 

Introduction a l'Histoire de la Philosophie. By Victor 
Cousin. English translation, by 0. W. Wight. 

Lectures on Greek Philosophy. By James Frederick Ferrier. 

Ancient and Modern Philosophy. By Frederick Denison 
Maurice. 

Christianity and Greek Philosophy. By B. F. Cocker, D. D. 

The Science of Thought. By Charles Carroll Everett. 

The Fragments of Parmenides. Translated by Thomas David- 
son, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 

vii 



i\ 



Viii KEFERENCE BOOKS ON GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Plato's Works, translated into German, with Introductions, by 
F. Schleiermacher. 

Plato's Dialogues. Translated into English, with Analyses, by 
Prof. B. Jowett. 

Aristotle. By Sir Alexander Grant. 

Aristotle's De Anima. English translation, with introduction 
and notes, by Edwin Wallace. 

Aristotle's Ethics. English translation, with notes and essays, 
by Sir Alexander Grant. 

Aristotle's Politics. English translation, with notes, by Prof. 
B. Jowett. 

Outlines of the Philosophy op Aristotle. By Edwin Wal- 
lace. 

EssAi suR LA Metaphysique d^Aristotle. By Felix Ravaisson. 

Prolegomena to Ethics. By Thomas Hill Green. 

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Edited by Dr. 
William T. Harris. 



OOI^TEKTS, 



INTRODUCTION. 

THE CLAIM AND CHARM OP PHILOSOPHY AS A 
STUDY. By William Rounseville Alger. 

CHAPTER I. 

PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY. Philosophy a progressive 
process of knowledge comprehending the progressive 
process of culture; philosophy a history of philosophy; 
self-knowledge and knowledge of the world; philosophy 
the self-knowledge of the human race. 

CHAPTER 11. 

CHARACTER OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Greek being 
the unity of the spiritual and the natural; the stage of 
Greek consciousness the stage of beauty; the classic style 
in philosophy; contrast between Greek and modern 
philosophy 

CHAPTER IIL 

PRE-SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. The rise of philosophy 
in Greece ; perception of nature its basis ; the Ionian phi- 
losophers, the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, Heraclitus, the 
Atomists, Anaxagoras 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. Thales; his proposition 
that water is the originative principle of all things an at- 



Page 



X CONTENTS. 

tempt to trace multiplicity back to unity ; Anaximander ; 
Anaximenes ; the philosophic significance of Ionic philos- 
ophy 10 

CHAPTER V. 

PYTHAaORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS. Fabu- 
lous stories of Pythagoras; the Pythagorean Order; Aris- 
totle's explanation of the Pythagorean principle ; number 
both form and substance, but the two not yet definitely 
separated; mathematics and music; metempsychosis; the 
Doric character of Pythagoreanism. . . . . 14 

CHAPTER YI. 

THE ELEATICS. Thought freed wholly from the finite 
affirms its own infinity; Xenophanes declares that God is 
pure spirit ; the principle of Parmenides pure being ; the 
contradiction between Being and Appearance; Zeno the 
inventor of dialectic ; his arguments against the possibil- 
ity of motion; the importance of the Eleatic principle 
and its influence upon language. . . . . . 19 

CHAPTER YII. 

HERACLITUS. The principle of- the Becoming; fire the 
symbol of the Becoming; the consciousness of truth a 
consciousness of the universal ; the principle of the Becom- 
ing antithetical to that of Being, but both alike valid. . 27 

CHAPTER VIII. 

EMPEDOCLES. A mediator between God and men; doc- 
trine of the four elements ; two moving forces, love and 
hate ; belief in metempsychosis ; value of his philosophy. 31 

CHAPTER IX. 

THE ATOMISTS. Leucippus and Democritus; the full and 
the void, or atoms and empty space ; atoms an object of 



COHTEKTS. XI 

thought, not of sensuous experience ; the Atomistic philos- 
ophy a mediation between the principles of Heraclitus and 
of the Eleatics 36 

CHAPTER X. 

ANAXAGORAS. Athens and Sparta; the principle of Anax- 
agoras intelligence (vov^); its mechanical application; 
individualized atoms; Anaxagoras closes the old period 
and opens the new 40 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE SOPHISTS. Influence of democracy upon philosophy; 
the true meaning of culture ; theoretical and practical ego- 
ism ; definition of the sophist ; method of Greek education ; 
rhetorical skill of the Sophists; their final criterion of 
judgment *' particular subjectivity," the individual self; 
relativity of truth and goodness ; the Sophists the Ency- 
clopaedists of Greece 45 

CHAPTER XII. 

INDIVIDUAL SOPHISTS. Protagoras; his fundamental 
proposition, **Man is the measure of all things;" its one- 
sided interpretation, truth is relative, not absolute; the 
three propositions of Gorgias; based on the contradictory 
nature of sensuous phenomena they are unanswerable from 
that point of view 55 

CHAPTER XIII. 

SOCRATES. The teaching of Socrates the positive comple- 
ment of the Sophistic philosophy; one principle repre- 
sented at different stages of growth by Socrates, Plato, 
and Aristotle ; the philosophy of Socrates closely connect- 
ed with his life; his mode of instruction; his character a 
model of virtue ; his friendship for young men ; Xanthippe ; 
his inner absorption ; different interpretations of his * ' dae- 



Xll CONTENTS. 

mon," or "genius;" the characteristics of Greek and 
modern consciousness united in Socrates. . . . 61 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE FATE OF SOCRATES. His trial; his fate the trag- 
gedy of Athens and Glreece ; his last hours ; Socrates and 
Aristophanes; the teachings of Socrates misunderstood; 
Socrates the precursor and founder of our moral view of 
the world; the truth of Subjectivity not the exclusive 
feeling of self, but the universal idea of self. . . 70 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE SOURCES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 
SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. The union of the ethical 
and the scientific, morality and knowledge ; an absolute 
moral authority at the basis of self -consciousness ; true 
knowledge derived from correct concepts; the Socratic 
method ; the Socratic irony ; the Socratic Eros ; the So- 
cratic process of induction and definition ; the relation 
between the universal concepts of Socrates and the Ideas 
of Plato . , . . 78 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SOCRATIC ETHICS. Virtue true knowledge ; self- 
knowledge morally essential; the attainment of moral 
independence; the concept of the Good and its abstract 
character ; the office of friendship ; the state, the family, 
and the individual; an ideal view of nature ; the Socratic 
trinity, knowledge, virtue, happiness 85 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. Varied 
character of the impression produced by Socrates; Euclid 
and the Megarian School; Antisthenes and the Cynics; 
Aristippus and the Cyrenaics; the only complete Socratist 
Plato 92 



CONTENTS. xm 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

PLATO'S LIFE AND WRITINGS. Early influences; 
acquaintance with Socrates; travels; the Academy; per- 
sonal character; quotation from Goethe; arrangement of 
his dialogues 102 

CHAPTER XIX. 

CHARACTER OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. Socratic 
basis of Plato's philosophy; idealism the deepest principle 
of all speculation; form of Plato's exposition; employ- 
ment of myths ; knowledge the activity of the soul itself 
in the sphere of Ideas; virtue based upon knowledge; ex- 
altation of Love ; Dialectic ; Idea of the Good ; allegory 
of the cave ; meaning of education ; philosophy the royal 
science ; quotation from Emerson 109 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. Dialectic the science of true 
Being, the inquiry into Ideas ; Ideas the eternal prototypes 
of Being; the laws of thought objective as well as sub- 
jective ; opinion the middle ground between ignorance and 
knowledge ; knowledge as opposed to perception considered 
in the Theaetetus ; the ideas of movement and rest, of Being 
and non-Being, investigated in the Sophist ; Being defined 
in the Parmenides as a unity which includes multiplicity ; 
the distinction between the absolute and the relative in 
the Philebus; dialectic inseparably united with moral 
culture; the Divine reason identified with God. . . 119 

CHAPTER XXL 

THE PLATONIC PHYSICS. Views of nature in the Tim- 
aeus ; creation of the world ; the world-soul ; Hegel's in- 
terpretation of Plato's thought ; matter ; the human soul ; 
the doctrine of reminiscence; immortality; retribution 
after death ; ethics the central point of Platonic philoso- 
phy 137 



XIV COKTEKTS. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

THE PLATONIC ETHICS. The good the endeavor of the 
soul to become like God ; philosophy a means of purifica- 
tion; virtue the internal harmony and health of the soul; 
virtue its own reward, vice its own punishment; justice 
the fundamental principle of Plato's ethics ; his ideal Re- 
public; his communistic views; violation of subjective 
freedom; Science of the Beautiful; the basis of Plato's 
philosophy the substantial Idea ; the older Academy. 147 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE. Early influ- 
ences; relation to Plato; tutor of Alexander the Great; 
school in Athens ; technical and popular lectures ; style of 
exposition ; stupendous achievements in science and phi- 
losophy ; strange fate of his manuscripts; Aristotle's 
writings the basis of Scholasticism ; their influence upon 
modern thinkers 163 

CHAPTER XXIY. 

GENERAL CHARACTER OP THE ARISTOTELIAN 
PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy the knowledge of final 
causes; Aristotle not an empiricist, but unites scientific 
observation with dialectic ; his style severely logical ; the 
Platonic idea the Aristotelian form toward which the 
sensuous strives with inner necessity ; Aristotle's philoso- 
phy original and independent, though resting on a So- 
cratic-Platonic basis 170 

CHAPTER XXV. 

ARISTOTLE'S LOGIC. The formal activity of the pure 
understanding described by Aristotle for all time ; the 
categories; the nature of the concept; the judgment and 
the syllogism; the theory of scientific demonstration; a 
necessary limit to mediatory knowing; the ''prior in 
nature " and the ''prior for us ; " proofs of probability ; the 



CONTEJ^TS. XV 

laws of the understanding formal laws, to attain specula- 
tive truth its logic must become the logic of Reason. . 175 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS. First Philosophy, or Wis- 
dom ; Being-in-itself the common basis of categories and 
propositions ; earlier theories examined and criticized by 
Aristotle ; agreement and disagreement with Plato ; the 
Idea with both related to an objective reality, but Plato 
emphasizes its transcendence, Aristotle its immanence ; 
the relation of form to matter; the becoming, or the 
nature of change; the substrate of change matter; matter 
pure potentiality ; motion the energy of matter ; motion 
presupposes a moving cause itself unmoved, Absolute 
Spirit; the universe a continuous system of ascending 
progression ; Absolute Good the final end of everything ; 
the Divine activity the activity of pure thought ; God not 
mere abstract Being, but living, eternal Energy. . 182 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

ARISTOTLE'S PHYSICS. Nature as a whole a gradual 
overcoming of matter through form ; motion, space, time ; 
life the power of self-motion; the soul, entelechy, the 
unity which embraces life, sense-perception, and thought ; 
the vegetative, the sensitive, and the cognitive soul ; dun- 
amis Siud energeia; free-will; the active and the passive 
reason. 197 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. Happiness the chief good for man; 
its highest realization participation in the blessed life of 
God; the moral significance of dunamis and energeia; 
natural tendencies the basis of morality, but morality their 
transformation through rational insight and will ; the law 
of moderation ; moral and intellectual virtue ; the relation 
of happiness to self -consciousness ; the distinction between 



XVI CONTENTS. 

happiness and pleasure ; the highest virtue an excellence of 

the intellect ; friendship 210 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

ARISTOTLE'S POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY OP ART, ETC. 
Politics the presupposition and completion of ethics; the 
relation of the family; prejudice against trade and traffic; 
opposition to Plato's communism; Aristotle's ideal state; 
his views on education; wise men rather than wise laws; . 
the ultimate identification of politics with ethics; Art 
closely connected with spiritual development ; purification 
(katharsis) ; the Peripatetic School. , . . . . 217 

CHAPTER XXX. 

TRANSITION TO THE POST-ARISTOTELIAN PHILOS- 
OPHY. The affirmation of self-thinking Reason the cul- 
mination of Greek philosophy ; thought the unity of the 
subjective and objective with Aristotle ; later schools neg- 
lect the objective and emphasize the subjective ; abstract 
universality of thought in Stoicism ; abstract individuality 
of feeling in Epicureanism; the negation of this one- 
sidedness in Scepticism; the final attempt to solve the 
dualism between subjective and objective in Neo-Plato- 
nism. . 225 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

STOICISM. Life and character of Zeno; aim of Stoic phil- 
osophy the exercise of virtue; virtue depends upon 
knowledge; Stoic view of nature dynamic; Destiny and 
Providence; the human will identified with universal law 
through self-conscious obedience; pleasure, not the aim, 
but a result of moral activity, different from virtue in 
essence and kind ; duty for its own sake a categorical im- 
perative; the ideal wise man; self-culture and the social 
well-being of the community; a universal human brother- 
hood. . . . 229 



CONTENTS. XVll 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

EPICUREANISM. Personal influence of Epicurus ; the aim 
of philosophy to promote happiness ; theoretical interests 
subordinated to practical ; the test of truth sensuous per- 
ception; Epicurus the inventor of empirical physics and 
empirical psychology; the supreme good not to suffer; 
virtue never an end in itself, but a means to pleasure; 
the highest form of social life friendship; one and the 
same principle viewed from opposite sides in Stoicism and 
Epicureanism 245 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SCEPTICISM. Philosophy contains in itself the negative of 
Scepticism as its own dialectic ; the New Academy ; the 
contrast between thought and being ; Pyrrho of Elis ; the 
ten tropes ; the consciousness of the negative and the defi- 
nition of its forms of the highest importance in philosophy. 254 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ECLECTICISM. Character of Eclecticism ; Cicero the repre- 
sentative Roman Eclectic ; the softened Stoicism of Sen- 
eca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius ; Plutarch's aim in 
philosophy to create moral character ; the union of Hellenic 
philosophy and Hebraic theology in Philo. . . . 261 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

NEO-PLATONISM. The aim of Neo-Platonism ; Platonism 
posits the One only as the primitive source of all being; 
the One produces nous, pure reason; pure reason pro- 
duces the world-soul ; the human soul once a part of the 
world-soul; its descent into the sensuous from which it 
must be freed to regain its original purity; the perfect life 
the life of thought ; the highest knowledge the self- intu- 
ition of reason ; mystical union with God the final aim of 
philosophy; the doctrines of Platonism popularized by 



XVlll CONTENTS. 

Porphyry ; the speculative basis of religion sought by 
Jamblichus; Proclus the representative of Scholasticism 
in Greek philosophy ; the creation of the finite and its re- 
turn to the Infinite conceived as a spiral descent and 
ascent; the ways to Grod three, love, truth, faith; the 
altar of the Absolute One a luminous centre in whose 
flame all is consumed and united ; Neo-Platonism a high 
idealism . 265 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE CLOSE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. The great 
work achieved by human reason in Greek philosophy ; the 
propaedeutic office it fulfilled for Christianity ; its affirma- 
tion of the existence of God and of the soul ; its identifica- 
tion of faith and knowledge, God's revelation to man and 
man's discovery of God 279 



INTEODUCTIOE". 



THE CLAIM AND CHAKM OF PHILOSOPHY AS A STUDY. 

THE REASON" that so many persons study the less 
important and less attractive branches of knowl- 
edge, while so few turn their attention to its supreme 
department, is that a multitude perceive the value and 
the interest of the inferior parts where one appre- 
ciates the claim and charm of the all-commanding 
whole. In the special domains of study the materials 
lie open to the senses and the understanding, in 
tangible form, to be experimentally dealt with, and 
to be mastered by efforts easily made, little by little. 
But in that universal field of principles, laws and 
processes, which philosophy covers, the appeal is made 
to the reflective faculties and speculative insight ; and 
these, with the vast majority of persons, are not 
keenly alive but undeveloped and disinclined to exer- 
tion. 

For every student of philosophy, without doubt, 
there are a hundred students of botany. Aside from 
utility, there is a strong attraction to the investiga- 
tion of the structure and life of plants and flowers ; 
for they comprise one of the chief domains of material 
beauty. But, both in dignity of range and intensity 
of interest, how incomparably superior is the study 

xix 



XX A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of metaphysics ; since this explores the very ground 
and nature and operation of beauty itself^ not merely 
in its physical manifestations but also in its intel- 
lectual and moral forms^ and in its constituent es- 
sence as the living revelation of the perfection of 
God! 

So there are a thousand avid devourers of poetry 
and romantic literature where there is one earnest 
reader of philosophical dissertations and treatises. This 
is because the pictures and narration of the former 
delight the craving sensuous powers of the mind^ and 
exact no costly effort ; while the profound discrimi- 
nation and sustained stretch of the latter overtask 
the attention and interest of all except serious and 
robust spirits. And yet what an immense advantage 
the ripe philosopher has over the mere poet or roman- 
ticist;, in the solid service and joy yielded by the 
exercise of their respective gifts and discipline ! For 
while poetry pleases^ with the rich loveliness and 
freedom of its productions^ philosophy^ not content 
with an empty enjoyment of them^ lays bare the 
innermost secrets of those productions^ and of their 
origin^ by expounding the fundamental nature and 
offices of the imagination and rhythm and metaphor^ 
whereby their matter is given and their spells are 
woven. All other modes of inquisitive spiritual activ- 
ity are partial and preliminary ; philosophy alone final 
or complete. 

The etymological force of the word philosophy is 
the love of wisdom. Seizing this, we grasp a de- 
scriptive phrase, not a definition ; we take possession 



INTRODUCTION^. XXI 

of the practical substance but miss the dialectic es- 
sence. Nevertheless this fructiferous ethical aspect is 
almost as valuable as the constitutive procedure itself. 
For the keenest metaphysical analysis or synthesis is 
no more than a vacant gymnastic of abstractions^ if 
it do not begin and end in the love of wisdom. 
Wisdom is knowledge enriching experience with 
blessed fruits. Wisdom is assimilative insight in 
fruition at its goal. And to the pursuit of this 
man has an integral vocation lodged in the generic 
core of his being. Luminous demonstration of the 
accuracy of this statement is easy, and may be given 
in a single sentence. 

As the transcendent paragon of animals, the only 
one who caps the climax of animality with the sur- 
passing crown of rationality, man fulfills Ms destiny 
by the progressive attainment of applied and enjoyed 
truth. And that is the real definition of wisdom. 
What is wisdom but truth happily realized in a liv- 
ing experience of its uses ? All knowledge that falls 
short of this is mere information in a storehouse. 
Wisdom is the term or end in which alone a rational 
nature reposes with satisfaction. Familiarity with it, 
according to a wonderful passage of Scripture, is 
friendship with that Divine Playfellow whose delight 
is in the children of men. Thus understood, is it 
not obvious that the study of philosophy presents both 
a claim and a charm of the supreme order? 

But let us leave the surface of description, and 
enter the depth of definition. What is philosophy? 
It is that form of thinking wherein all the parts imply 



XXll A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

one another, and every part implies the whole. It is 
that kind of knowledge which has its presuppositions 
in itself^ and is, therefore, independent of all other 
knowledge, while all other knowledge is dependent 
on it. It is the self-seizure of the idea in reflective 
consciousness. It is the science of self -activity. It is 
the pure search after the First Principle, the finding 
of it, and the deduction thence of all else. It takes 
for its province those elements and methods which 
are common to all the special sciences, and groups 
them in a sovereign unification. Hence, with entire 
justice, it has generally been designated the science of 
sciences, queen of all the rest. 

The definition of philosophy given by the great mas- 
ters of thinking are all in substantial agreement under 
their verbal differences. For example, Ueberweg form- 
ulates it as the Science of Principles; Fichte, as the 
Science of Knowledge; Eosmini, as the Science of Ulti- 
mate Grounds. In response to every why asked by 
the human mind the philosopher undertakes to reach 
an answer so comprehensive and final that it cannot 
be transcended. The aim of philosophical study, 
then, is the conquest of truth in its universal essence, 
aspects, relations, source and end. And so it is the 
specialty of its royal prerogative to forerun, pervade 
and follow, all the other sciences which are sub- 
divided under its universality, and subordinated to its 
authority. Its cultivators study the nature and pro- 
vidence of God, in theology; the character and exper- 
ience of man, in psychology; the phenomena and laws 
of the universe, in cosmology; and the varied treasures 



IJS^TRODUCTION. XXlll 

of the other special domains of knowledge, under 
their several rubrics. In all these departments the 
laws of consciousness, observation, cognition, discrimi- 
nation, classification, congruity, are the same; and they 
can be furnished by philosophy alone. It is, then, 
plainly, unrivaled in its importance. 

Strenuous eilorts have recently been made in several 
elaborate lectures to show that ethical science does 
not depend either on religion or philosophy, but is 
every way competent to itself. This is a shallow con- 
fusion of thought, and an unwarrantable use of lan- 
guage. The case may be conclusively stated in a nut- 
shell thus : Philosophy is the science of ultimate 
grounds. Morality is the science of right and wrong 
in human conduct. Every concept that enters into it, 
such as causation, duty, conscience, motive, sanction, 
vice, crime, penalty, derives its significance from cer- 
tain principles, theoretical and practical. If moral 
science furnishes these principles from its own resources, 
it is itself a philosophy. If it looks elsewhere for 
them, it presupposes a foundation deeper and broader 
than itself. By consequence, ethics necessarily rests on 
philosophy. 

There is another consideration which places the 
importance and the attractiveness of this study in a 
still more striking light. The highest intellectual power 
and dignity of which our nature is capable can be 
realized only through the cultivation of philosophy, 
which deals directly with the sublimest thoughts con- 
ceivable by any minds created or uncreated. Consider, 
for instance, the content of the idea of absolute per- 



XXIV A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

fection indicated by the word God. The meaning of 
this word;, the greatest in human language^ is 'a com- 
pletely self-determined Person, who is a free infinitude 
of love, wisdom, power, holiness and bliss, forever giv- 
ing himself to a boundless number of persons, whom 
he creates for the purpose of multiplying his perfec- 
fection by them! Such is the developed Christian 
idea of God. Pure act is a self-distinguishing unity, 
which has no potentialities. That is, all possible pre- 
suppositions are actualized in it. This is at once the 
realized experience of God and the offered destiny of 
man. Being is knowableness; and man is a free 
power of determining it for himself. His determina- 
tions of pure being are ideas, which are universal and 
infinite in their nature. There is nothing real apart 
from thought ; for the thinking of God originates all 
that is. And thought can comprehend all else while 
nothing else can comiDrehend thought. Knowledge, 
without which ignorance could not be known, is par- 
ticipation of omniscience; as duration, without which 
time could not be known, is participation of eternity. 
And knowledge is possible only as the progressive 
actualization in us of a self -consciousness in itself com- 
plete, and in itself including the universe as its object. 
That is to say, all true knowledge in man is his par- 
ticipation of the creative thinking of God. Thus we 
become, as the New Testam ent says, ' ' partakers of the 
divine nature.^^ What other dignity is worthy of com- 
parison with this? But clearly it cannot be bestowed 
by any degree of familiarity with the physical sciences, 
or with the political sciences, or with historic or liter- 



IKTKODUCTION. XXV 

ary lore. It is to be achieved by the development of 
the spirit in the study of philosophy. 

It is astonishing how materialistic science is over- 
rated and ideal philosophy underrated at the pres- 
ent time. It is as if one should put a high value 
on a • pebble because he can clutch it^ and despise 
a star because he cannot. A popular declaim er, 
whose name rings through America^ says^ "^^ Darwin 
contented himself with giving to his fellowmen the 
greatest and the sublimest truths that man has 
spoken since lips uttered speech ! '' What are those 
truths ? That all through nature there is a struggle 
for existence^ from the lowest vermin to the highest 
animals; and that in that struggle a law of natural 
selection causes the survival of those best fitted to 
their environment. Whatever value may be assigned 
to these formulas^ surely they cannot^ for purity, 
grandeur, beauty, inspiring power, stand in any com- 
parison with the cardinal doctrines of philosophy, 
such as the perfection of God, the infinity of intel- 
lect, the immortality of the soul, the absolute au- 
thority of right. The weightiest sentences Darwin 
ever wrote are utterly insignificant when set along 
side of any one of hundreds of sentences which may 
be quoted from the really sovereign thinkers repre- 
sented by Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Leib- 
nitz, Kant, Hegel. 

No one able to appreciate them can pay even 
passing attention to such statements as the following, 
without seeing that the study of philosophy is the 
sublimest and worthiest of all studies. Infinite being 



XXVI A STUDY OP GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

is the object of thought^ and personal spirit is the 
thinking subject capable of distinguishing it into in- 
finite determinations. Being is one and personalities 
are innumerable : but the whole of the object is for 
every one of the subjects. Consciousness is a poten- 
tial infinite ; because it cannot be limited by any- 
thing of which it is unconscious. Therefore it is 
exclusively self -limited ; and self -limitation is the 
definition of the true infinite. Consciousness is a 
self-determinable mirror which becomes whatever it 
refiects. For certainly nothing can enter conscious- 
ness save as this from its own substance creates a 
representation of that which enters it. Here is mat- 
ter for one to muse over with worshiping wonder as 
long as he lives. 

Finally, in illustration of the claim and charm of 
philosophy as a study, we must say that it is not 
only the most comprehensive and exalted of all studies, 
but it is also the purest, the freest, the most beau- 
tiful and delightful. The subject is self-contained 
and the student is self-sufficing. Stimulants and aids 
may be attained abroad, from books and from teachers. 
But all the essential data are in the student himself. 
The learning faculties, being, nature, life, humanity, 
God, are all within his immediate reach, just as they 
were with Fichte or with Pythagoras. And great attain- 
ments were as easy for the ancient masters of insight 
as they are for the latest student, because all that 
they did for themselves he must now do for himself 
in his own psychical work-shop. If the deepest 
thoughts have been thought many times already it is 



INTKODUCTIOi^. XXVU 

none the less necessary that each new comer think 
them again. He never can obtain them from 
another. 

And nothing can be imagined cleaner^ lovelier, or 
more precious, than the task whose triumphant ac- 
complishment initiates the performer, even in this dim 
world, into that sacred hierarchy of intelligences who 
contemplate the divine archetypes. The differential 
and integral calculus is the science of continuous 
being and its determinations, in the mathematical or 
formal order. The dialectic is the science of contin- 
uous being and its determinations, in the moral or 
substantial order. Leibnitz began the unification of 
these two and Swedenborg wished to continue it. 
When some inspired genius, in the future, shall 
complete this unification of the mathematical and the 
metaphysical dialectic, and simplify it for popular 
communication, the epoch of illumination and re- 
demption for which travailing humanity waits so long 
will dawn. 

In the meantime what matchless privileges wait on 
the secluded employment of the philosopher ! That 
the study of metaphysics is repulsively dry, barren, 
knotty [and wearisome, is a vulgar prejudice of ig- 
norance and frivolity. Earnestness and patience will 
find it no more difficult than the other chief disci- 
plines of wisdom. It deals with the ideal realities of 
good, truth, right, use, beauty, immortality, in their 
origins and ultimates. And these are the substantial 
thoughts of God by whose means the thinking sub- 
ject, — under the lights of nature, reason, and divinity. 



XXVlll A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

— changes itself from natural shadow through rational 
reflection into divine substance. 

This is a province of culture preeminently suitable 
for women^ it is so pure a domain of beauty. 

How charming is divine philosophy! 

Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose; 

But musical as is Apollo's lute, 

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets 

Where no crude surfeit reigns. 

The accomplished and amiable writer of the present 
work herein sets an excellent example which it is to be 
hoped a multitude of her sisters will be quick to follow. 
Nothing can become them better or profit them more. 
It is an employment without any compromises either 
of modesty^ refinement or aspiration. No perishable 
tools are needed. No filthy experiments with furnaces 
and retorts or earths and smuts and moulds and rots 
are called for. And however arduously the workers 
toil they make no noise and leave no chips or dust 
or slag. The material is spirit, the labor is silence^ 
the course is intelligence and affection, the product is 
wisdom and character, the path of advance is infinity, 
the goal is God. And if that goal be a retreating one 
the pursuer carries at every step a substantial refiex of 
it in his own breast. 

William Eoukseville Alger, 



A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



CHAPTEK I. 

PHILOSOPHY AKD HISTORY. 

TO understand what is meant by philosophy we must 
understand what is meant by development^ that it 
implies not only potentiality but reality. One may say 
that man is reasonable by nature^ but in the child, reason 
is a possibility not yet realized. Education must develop 
and bring it to consciousness. Our potentialities as 
spiritual beings are infinite, but are transformed into 
realities only through an active cooperation which makes 
them objects of conscious endeavor and aspiration. As 
the seed under favorable conditions produces the plant, 
the blossom, the fruit, and returns again to seed, the 
spiritual germ in man expands, unfolds, and produces its 
fruit. But here the comparison ceases, for the spiritual 
fruit becomes matter for a higher form of growth, a 
higher grade of development. Each age inherits the 
culture and experience of preceding ages, and though a 
particular race or people may retrograde by reason of 
external conflicts or inner exhaustion, humanity as a 
whole steadily and consistently develops its latent possi- 
bilities. Progress is not in a straight line, but in a 
series of widening circles. " Philosophy looks through 

J 



2 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. ^ 

the totality of circles^ comprehending in a progressive 
process of knowledge the progessive process of culture/^ 
says Kuno Fischer. 

What else, then, is philosophy, except a history of 
philosophy ? Are we to look for reason only in the 
products of nature, and not in those of spirit ? He who 
considers the different systems of philosophy as mere acci- 
dents instead of a necessity, doubts the rule of reason. 
If the universe is divinely governed, each great system of 
thought must possess historic worth and historic truth. 
For the object of knowledge in philosophy is the human 
spirit itself, and truth is a living process which develops 
and advances in the civilizing course of humanity. 

^^But does not philosophy embrace in its problems 
something more than the human spirit ? " asks Kuno 
Fischer. We call it self-knowledge ; it calls itself 
knowledge of the world. Only a few times in the 
course of its history has the Delphic word, ^^Know 
thyself, ^^ appeared at the head of philosophy, as the 
first of all problems. Whenever this has happened 
there has come a turning point in its history ; as with 
the Socratic epoch in ancient times, the Kantian in 
modern times. These epochs would not so clearly illu- 
minate the way on all sides if they did not bring to 
light the nature of the matter in its whole extent. 

Human self-knowledge is not only the deepest but 
the most comprehensive of all problems, including in 
itself, if carefully analyzed, knowledge of the world. 
Does this statement appear incredible ? Surely it is 
not difficult to see that the world as an object of thought 
is only possible under the condition of a self-conscious 



PHILOSOPHY ANiD HISTORY. 3 

being who makes it such an object^ such a problem. 
Here we reach the great riddle of things. What is the 
world independent of our thought, our representation 
of it ? Is there any knowledge of it distinct from and 
independent of human self-knowledge ? Is not philos- 
ophy the self-knowledge attained by the human race 
in its successive stages of development ? Does it not 
seek to comprehend the innermost motive of every 
form of culture, to make clear to the human spirit 
its own strivings ? 

What lies in the act of self-knowledge applied to 
our individual consciousness ? We draw back from the 
external world, make the life we have hitherto lived 
an object of reflection, regard it critically and perceive 
its defects. Can we return to the old condition ? No, 
we are freed from it in a measure, we are no longer 
what we were ; earnest self-knowledge is a renewal 
and transformation of our life. It is a crisis, a turn- 
ing-point in our spiritual career, preparing us for new 
interests and higher forms of culture than those we 
have outlived. We begin to philosophize so far as we 
are able, and our philosophy is a fruit of our culture, 
however ripe or unripe. This is the significance of 
self-knowledge in the experience and development of 
individual life. Similar crises occur in the collected 
life of humanity, and are expressed in the great systems 
of philosophy, which work as historic factors in the 
culture of successive ages, defining and influencing 
progress, identical on one side with the spirit of their 
time, but introducing, on the other, a new form of 
development. 



CHAPTER II. 

CHARACTER OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

/^NE people above all was philosophic in antiquity, 
^-^ the Greek. Their philosophy sprang from the 
basis of their national life, and can only be compre- 
hended by studying the peculiarities of Greek being. 
They received the beginnings of their religion and their 
culture from Asia and from Egypt, but so transformed 
and enriched the foreign material that all which we 
recognize and value in it is essentially Greek. They 
breathed into it the breath of spiritual life, the soul 
of freedom and beauty. They even forgot, ungratefully, 
the foreign sources of their culture, and looked upon 
it wholly as their own merit and achievement. Hegel 
calls the Greek spirit the plastic artist, forming the 
stone into a work of art. The stone does not remain 
stone in this formative process, but is transfigured by the 
idea shining through it ; nevertheless, without the 
stone, the artist could not embody the idea. Herein lies 
the distinctive character of Greek being, that unbroken 
unity of the spiritual and the natural, which constitutes 
at once its glory and its limitation. 

Breaking through the Oriental dependence on the 
powers of nature, the Greek subordinates the sensuous 
to a tool and sign of the spiritual, and supplants his 
own natural condition by the higher one of a morally 



CHARACTER OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 5 

free, beautiful human culture. The happiness he strives 
for he wishes to attain through the development of 
his bodily and spiritual powers, through vigorous par- 
ticipation in the thoughts and activities of his fellow- 
citizens. His morality rests upon the basis of natural 
disposition. From the old Greek point of view man 
is not required to renounce his physical desires and be 
changed in the depths of his being ; the natural inclina- 
tions as such are justified, virtue consists in the de- 
velopment of every faculty, and the highest moral law 
is to follow the course of nature freely and reasonably, 
observing the right measure and proportion. The cus- 
tom of his people is to the Greek the highest moral 
authority, life in and for the State the highest duty ; 
beyond these limits he scarcely recognizes moral obliga- 
tion. This very limitation, the narrowness of Greek 
relations and sympathies, was fitted to produce great 
individualities, classic characters. 

The stage of Greek consciousness is the stage of 
beauty. There is no contradiction present between the 
sensuous appearance and the idea ; one completely real- 
izes and interprets the other. Thus the Greeks remain 
unrivaled masters for all time in sculpture, in the 
epic, the classic form of architecture. Religion and 
art are identified. ^^The Greek divine service, ^^ says 
Mr. Denton J. Snider, " was an act of the poetic im- 
agination ; worship was a poem conceived, if not sung ; 
therein was the worshiper elevated into the presence 
of the beautiful God, into whose image he was to trans- 
form himself, and be a living embodiment of the Ee- 
ligion of Beauty.'^ 



6 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

This plastic spirit characterizes Greek activity even 
in the domain of philosophy. Nothing is forced or 
artificial in the development of its problems; nowhere 
is there a break in the advancing course of ideas ; a 
connection of the most vital kind unites the members 
of this far-extended series into one harmonious whole. 
^^That plastic quiet with which a Parmenides^ a Plato, 
an Aristotle, treat the most difficult problems/^ says 
Zeller. '^'^is the same thing in the domain of scientific 
thinking that we call the classic style in that of art."*^ 

The Greek philosopher directs himself simply to the 
matter, and accepts what appears to him as true and 
real. This immediate relation to the object of his 
thought was only possible because it proceeded from a 
more imperfect experience, a more limited knowledge 
of nature, a weaker development of inner life, than our 
own. The modern philosopher has to deal with a 
greater mass of facts and laws, facts carefully examined, 
laws strictly defined. Hence his critical attitude. He 
begins with doubt, and is forced by his starting-point 
to keep the possibility and the conditions of knowledge 
in continual sight. 

At the beginning of Greek philosophy, it is the 
external world which first draws attention to itself, and 
suggests the question as to its causes. What lies at 
the basis of all the changes which the senses perceive ? 
What is the substance out of which the world is made ? 
This question is followed by another. How is the 
world made ? These two taken together express the 
main problem of Greek philosophy : How do matter 
and form unite ? The character of the answers I shall 
seek to interpret in the following pages. 



CHAPTER III. 

PKE-SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 

THIS division includes the Ionian philosophers, 
Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes ; Pytha- 
goras and his disciples ; the Eleatics, Xenophanes, Par- 
menides, and Zeno ; Heraclitus, Empedocles^ Leucippus, 
Democritus, and Anaxagoras. ^ 

Greek philosophy began in the sixth century B. C, 
born in the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor at the time of 
their political decadence. Kroesus and the Lydians had 
first imperiled Ionian freedom ; later, the Persians de- 
stroyed it wholly. Dissatisfied with the world of reality 
which lay in ruins, thought fled to an ideal realm of its 
own creation. 

Perception of nature is the basis from which this early 
philosophy proceeds. The universal is conceived in a 
material form, as water, air, etc. But water as the fund- 
amental element of things, the primitive substance un- 
derneath nature^s manifold changes, can only be an object 
of thought, not of sensuous perception. To say that all 
things are made of water is to say also that these many 
appearances of nature perceived by the senses proceed 
from one cause. Multiplicity is traced back to unity ; 
the Many are comprehended in the One. 

Thought makes a farther advance when the Pythago- 
reans conceive the essence of things as number. Without 

7 



8 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

matter there could not be number^ since we could have 
neither extension nor division in space and time. But 
number itself is immaterial^ lifted above the world of the 
senses^ though not independent of it wholly. 

The Eleatics go a step farther ; abstract their principle 
from everything material;, and call it pure Being. Change 
is impossible^, they say ; how is anything to pass from an 
unchangeable to a changeable condition ? How did the 
world begin ? Beginning implies movement ; how could 
the immovable move ? Fixing their gaze on the unity of 
thought^ they deny the multiplicity of nature, deny 
n^ure altogether. They first make the great discov- 
ery that contradictions are contained in our natural 
thinking, that the sensuous representation of the world 
is not the true one — a discovery rich in results for all 
time. 

Heraclitus regards the problem from another point of 
view. To him, also, it is incomprehensible that the un- 
changeable should change. But he does not therefore 
deny change ; he affirms it as the fact of all facts, and 
believes that it is eternal, that ''^everything flows,''^ that 
the essence of things is itself the Becoming. He makes 
energy the primal principle instead of the Ionic matter. 
Becoming is the unity of being and non-being ; some- 
thing is, and at the same time is not. The whole world 
of experience is in a state of transition from one condi- 
tion to another. All finite existences are changing, pass- 
ing away. Transitoriness belongs to the nature of finite 
beiug. Hence the Eleatics denied it, denied the world of 
matter, and affirmed the reality of the infinite — the 
world of thought. The principle of Heraclitus implies. 



PRE-SOPHISTIC PHILOSOPHY. 9 

on the other hand, the infinite within the finite, as the 
divine activity producing change. 

Empedocles and the Atomists offer another explana- 
tion. Matter itself is considered as the abiding, the 
unchanging. What we call change is produced by the 
union and separation of numberless primordial elements 
or atoms. 

Anaxagoras took the next step in philosophy. Whence 
come the order and arrangement of the world, if the 
atoms are only drawn together by a mechanical, blind 
movement ? What is it that directs the movement ? It 
must be an intelligent principle, says Anaxagoras. The 
essence of the world is mind, not matter. 

Here the first period of Greek philosophy closes. The 
problems of nafcure have been so far investigated that 
from their solutions spirit proceeds as the moving, direct- 
ing thought — self -creative activity. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE lOKIC PHILOSOPHEKS. 

T HALES. — With Thales we begin the history of phi- 
losophy. He was a native of Miletus^ born about 
640 B. G.y a contemporary of Kroesus and Solon. His 
position at the head of the Seven Wise Men proves that 
he was greatly esteemed for practical wisdom by his fel- 
low-citizens. He is supposed to have studied mathematics 
in Egypt^ and was the first to teach geometry in Greece. 
Diogenes Laertius relates an anecdote illustrating his 
interest in astronomy. Looking up to observe the stars, 
he fell into a ditch, and the people mocked him that, 
seeking to comprehend heavenly things, he could not see 
what lay at his feet. This is an old version of the com- 
mon reproach brought against philosophers and philoso- 
phy. One critic remarks that the mockers could not 
stumble and fall into the ditch because they lay there 
already and never looked upward . 

Thales left no writings. All we know of his philoso- 
phy is the proposition that all things arise from and 
consist of water. Aristotle suggests that Thales was led 
to this thought by observing that dampness belongs to 
the nature of seeds and nutriment ; that warmth itself 
comes from moisture, and thereby life itself. So far as 
we know, Thales did little more than enunciate his prin- 
ciple. Wherein, then, lies his philosophic significance ? 

10 



THE IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. 11 

Why does philosophy begin with Thales ? Because he 
first makes the attempt to explain natural appearances 
from their universal ground. He draws back from the 
world of nature^ where he sees only change and multipli- 
city, and seeks to reduce all things to one simple sub- 
stance, uncreated and imperishable. This substance he 
calls water, giving it a physical form, but meaning by it 
the essence of things, that which is not perceived by the 
senses, the unity underlying multiplicity. It was a grand 
affirmation of the human spirit, this affirmation of the 
One made by Thales in that old Greek world where the 
very gods had a theogony and were many and changing. 
Anaximander, — Anaximander of Miletus, some years 
younger than Thales, appears to have been his friend and 
disciple. He was the first to apply the word principle 
(o^pxn) to the original essence which he assumed. What 
he meant by this essence which he defined as " unlim- 
ited, eternal and unconditioned,^^ is not clear to his 
commentators. It was neither ^^ water nor air,^^ but 
^^ contains in itself and rules everything, ^^ and is ^^ di- 
vine, immortal, imperishable.^^ The parts of the infinite 
change, but it is itself unchangeable. It is farther said 
to be infinite in magnitude, but not in number. Anaxi- 
mander affirmed its absolute continuity, but not its 
absolute discretion, as was afterwards maintained by 
Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and the Atomists. Aristotle 
is supposed to have been alluding to Anaximander when 
he speaks of a principle which is neither water nor air, 
but ^"^ thicker than air and thinner than water. ^^ It is 
certainly material, and seems to have been matter gener- 
ally, since Anaximander separates from it the elemental 



12 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

opposites, warm and cold^ moist and dry^ and brings to- 
gether the homogeneous in such a way that what is gold 
becomes gold^ what is earth becomes earth, and yet noth- 
ing arises or begins to be, but all is contained potentially 
in the original substance. This imperfect attempt to 
trace back natural appearances scientifically and to ex- 
plain the world from physical grounds denotes a great 
advance of thought in comparison with the myths of the 
old cosmogonies. 

Anaximenes. — Anaximenes was younger than Anaxi- 
mander, and is supposed to have been one of his disci- 
ples. Like Thales he represents the absolute under a 
physical form, but as air instead of water. Air seems 
less material than water ; we do not see it, but feel its 
motion. ^^ As our soul, which is air, holds us together, 
so spirit and air, which are synonymous, animate the 
universe. ^^ He thus compares his essence to the soul, 
and seems to form a transition from the natural philoso- 
phy of his predecessors to the philosophy of conscious- 
ness, 

Diogenes of Apollonia, Idaeus of Himera, and Arche- 
laus, are also called Ionian philosophers, but we know 
little of them except their names, and that they sup- 
ported in part or wholly the views of their joredecessors. 

Aristotle calls attention to the fact that the earth is 
not assumed as a first principle by any of these early 
philosophers, because it appears like an aggregate of 
many single parts, and does not represent unity in a 
sensuous form as completely as water, air or fire. The 
greatness of their thought consisted in their conception 
of one universal substance, expressed as a form of mat- 



THE IONIC PHILOSOPHEKS. 13 

ter^ but uncreated and imperishable^ at the basis of 
nature^s changing and manifold appearances. 



CHAPTEE V. 

PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS. 

npHE next step in philosophy was taken by Pythago- 
-^ ras of Samos^ who lived between 540 and 500 
B. C. He is the hero of many fabulous stories^ and 
the accounts we possess of his life and achievements 
are so interwoven with the fanciful inventions of his 
later adherents that we cannot tell what is or is not 
historical. He is supposed to have traveled in Egypt 
and through intercourse with its priestly caste to have 
conceived the idea which he afterwards executed^ the 
foundation of a society or order devoted to man^s 
moral regeneration. Upon his return he settled at Cro- 
tona^ in Lower Italy, or Magna Gra3cia, where he ap- 
pears to have distinguished himself not only as a states- 
man, a warrior, and a political law-giver, but as a 
teacher of morality and personal culture. He is said 
to have possessed great personal beauty and a majestic 
presence, which, added to his eloquence, inspired his 
listeners with awe and admiration. He was the first 
to give himself the name of (pcUaocpog (lover of wisdom), 
instead of oo(i)6g (the wise man). 

He not only instructed his friends but associated 
them together in a peculiar form of life, which de- 
veloped into what is known as the Pythagorean order, 
similar in character to the voluntary monasticism of 

14 



PYTHAGOEAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS. 15 

modern times. Whoever wished to join this order 
was subjected to a novitiate of five years^ during 
which period he must preserve strict silence. It 
is claimed by a modern philosopher that it is an 
essential condition of true culture to receive at first 
without question the thoughts of others. The mem- 
bers of this order wore a uniform dress of white 
linen and led a regular life^ each hour of the day hav- 
ing its appointed task. It was enjoined upon all that 
they should reflect night and morning upon the 
events of the preceding day in order to determine 
wherein their actions had been right or wrong. They 
ate in common ; their chief food was bread and honey^ 
their only drink water. They abstained from meat 
on account of their belief in the transmigration of 
souls. Among vegetables^ beans were forbidden as an 
article of diet, for what reason is not clear. 

Notwithstanding its high moral significance in the 
hisfcory of Glreek culture and of humanity, it was im- 
possible that an order like this having no connection 
with the public and religious life of the Greeks should 
be long maintained. Hence we find no trace of its 
existence as a formal union of individuals after the 
death of Pythagoras, which is variously stated as oc- 
curring in his eightieth or one hundred and fourth 
year. That any select number of citizens should 
distinguish themselves either by a peculiar mode of 
dress or of life was foreign to the idea of the Greek 
state, whose members stood on a perfect equality one 
with the other. Even the priests who guarded the 
Mysteries did not form a caste as in Egypt, but took 



16 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

an active part in public affairs^ and were in no way 
set apart from their fellow-citizens. 

Turning to the Pythagorean system of philosophy we 
find it to have been the work of different men and 
times. Its principal thoughts came probably from 
Pythagoras himself, but history leaves the point un- 
certain. Aristotle, who is our chief authority in the 
matter, speaks of the Pythagoreans, never of Pythagoras. 
The principle they affirmed was number; ^^ number is 
the essence of all things. ^^ How did they reach this 
thought ? Did it spring from their love of law and 
order in the life of man, leading them to observe the 
regularity of natural phenomena in the movements of 
the planets and the relations of tones ? Aristotle says 
that they believed there was greater resemblance in 
number to that '^ which is, and happens, than in fire, 
water, or earth. ^^ 

But what did they mean ? Did they regard num- 
bers as things themselves, or as their archetypes, sep- 
arated from them as the thoughts of an artist from 
his work ? Aristotle explains their theory in this 
way ; number is both form and substance, but the 
two are not yet definitely separated in thought. This 
was an advance beyond the Ionic point of view, from 
a principle purely sensuous to the abstract relation 
of quantity. Aristotle quotes Plato as saying that the 
mathematical attributes of things belong neither to the 
world of the senses, nor to that of ideas, but mediate 
between both ; different from the sensuous because 
they are eternal and unchangeable, different from ideas 
because they contain multiplicity. 



PYTHAGORAS AISTD THE PYTHAGOREANS. 17 

Pythagoras applying his philosophic theory to music^ 
argued that although there might be qualitative dift'er- 
ences as between men^s voices and wind instruments^ the 
peculiar relation of tones to each other upon which har- 
mony depends is a relation of numbers. He also sought 
to construe mathematically the heavenly bodies of the 
visible universe. They are represented as ten^ which 
was regarded as the most perfect number : the Milky 
Way^ or the fixed stars; Saturn^ Jupiter^ Mars^ Venus, 
Mercury, the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, and the 
Counter-Earth. It is uncertain whether this Counter- 
Earth meant the opposite side of our planet, or one 
wholly distinct from it. Aristotle thinks it was in- 
vented to complete the number ten. The earth was 
supposed to revolve around a central fire, which was 
called the Watch of Zeus. Each heavenly body as it 
moved produced a different tone, according to its size 
and speed, and thus arose that harmonious world-chorus, 
the ^^ music of the spheres, ^^ which we do not hear, say 
the Pythagoreans, because it is identical with our own 
substance and being. 

A similar theory was applied to the soul. It was 
conceived as a harmony, a counterpart of the heavenly 
system, dwelling in the body as in a prison. To this 
was added the belief in metempsychosis, a doctrine 
stretching far back to India, but borrowed from Egypt 
by Pythagoras. Pythagoras claimed to possess a dis- 
tinct recollection of having passed through various 
stages of existence — as the son of Hermes, and Euphorbus 
in the Trojan war. 

To comprehend Pythagoreanism we must study the 



18 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

conditions of Greek culture in the sixth century B. C. 
As a reformatory movement it belongs to that series of 
ethical strivings which we trace in the works of 
Epimenides^ in the rise of the Mysteries^ in the teach- 
ings of the Gnomic poets and of the Seven Wise Men. 
It also bears the stamp of the Doric race character and 
the Doric institutions. Its aristocratic politics^ its 
musiC;, its gymnastic, its admission of women to the 
culture and society of men, its severe morality, its 
regard for the traditional customs and laws, its venera- 
tion of the old and of superiors — all were essentially 
Dorian. But it received from Ionic physiology the im- 
j)ulse towards a scientific explanation of the world. 
Pythagoras transplanted philosophy from its old Ionic 
home, in Asia Minor, to Italy^ that it might there develop 
under new conditions. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



THE ELEATICS. 



rriHE Eleatics carried the process begun by the 
-^ Pythagoreans to its ultimate limits and abstracted 
their principle from matter altogether. Thought frees 
itself wholly from the bondage imposed upon it by the 
senses, denies the finite world, and affirms its own 
infinity. It declares that change, beginning and end- 
ing, genesis and decay, are unthinkable, therefore im- 
possible. How can that which is not begin to be ? 
How can that which is cease to be ? The world in 
which we live is a delusion of the senses ; its changing 
and manifold forms are a mere appearance, and have no 
real existence ; only being is; there is no becoming 
(therefore no progress). 

Xenophanes, the founder of the school, expressed its 
principle theologically as the one God, in opposition to 
the polytheism of his age ; Parmenides, a disciple of 
Xenophanes, and a deeper thinker than his master, 
developed the doctrine metaphysically ; Zeno, a disciple 
of Parmenides, perfected it dialectically. Thus three 
generations worked together in the formation and devel- 
opment of this system. 

Xenophanes. — Xenophanes was born at Colophon, in 
Asia Minor, but in what year is uncertain. We know 
from his writings that he was a contemporary of 

19 



20 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

PythagoraS;, whom he outlived. It is said that his re- 
moval to Elea, in Lower Italy^ where he died at an 
advanced age^ gave its name to the school. 

He wrote in verse^ like all the older philosophers; 
but only a few fragments of his poems remain. In 
these he enunciates the doctrine that one God rules 
the worlds for Deity is the highest, and the highest 
can only be One : '^ One God there is, among gods and 
men the greatest ; neither in body like to mortals, 
nor in mind. . . . With the whole of him he sees, 
with the whole of him he thinks, with the whole of 
him he hears. . . . Without exertion, by energy of 

mind, he sways the universe That he abides 

forever in the same state, without movement or change 
from place to place, is evident. . . . But mortals 
fancy that gods come into being like themselves, and 
have their senses, voice and body. But of a truth, if 
oxen and lions had hands, and could draw with their 
hands, and make what men make, then horses would 
paint the images of gods like unto horses, and oxen like 
unto oxen, and shape their bodies also after the simili- 
tude of their own limbs. ''^ 

To comprehend what this meant in that old Greek 
world, we must reproduce for ourselves its conditions, 
sensuous and intellectual ; must go back, if possible, to 
its consciousness. To us it seems little to say that God 
is pure spirit ; we have grown up in that belief and 
conviction. But it was a grand utterance to make in 
the face of Greek polytheism and anthropomorphism. 

Xenophanes censures Homer and Hesiod for pre- 
senting the gods like human beings, with the voices 



THE ELEATICS. 21 

and faces, the virtues and vices, of men. Limitation of 
any kind, physical, intellectual or moral, is unworthy 
of Deity. 

It is possible that Xenophanes meant to affirm the 
unity of the world at the same time with the unity of 
God. As he could not harmonize likeness to men with 
his conception of Deity, so in natural appearances he 
would seek the ground of their similarity and connection 
in a force which could not be separated from the world 
itself. If Deity is One, all things are one, and, in the 
words of Zeller, ^^Polytheistic religion becomes philo- 
sophic pantheism. ^^ 

Parmenides. — Xenophanes does not see the difficulty 
that lies in the acceptance of his point of view ; it is 
Parmenides who recognizes it first. The date of this 
philosopher's birth is also unknown, but Socrates says 
in Plato's dialogue of *^The Sophist:" ^'^ I was present 
when Parmenides uttered words of exceeding beauty. I 
was then a young man, and he already advanced in years.'' 

Parmenides is the most important figure in the 
Eleatic school, and was revered by antiquity for the 
purity of his character and the depth of his thinking. 
He exerted great influence in his native city, improving 
its morals and legislation. He disseminated his philo- 
sophic doctrines by means of public lectures and discus- 
sions, and embodied them in a poem on Nature, frag- 
ments of which are preserved in the works of Plato, 
Sextus Empiricus, Proclus, and Simplicius. They have 
been translated into English by Professor Thomas 
Davidson, and published in the fourth volume of The 
Journal of Speculative Philosophy, 



22 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The poem opens with an introduction wherein Par- 
menides represents himself as borne aloft in a chariot, 
drawn by coursers that are guided by the daughters of 
the Sun to the seat of the goddess, who teaches him how 
to distinguish between the ^^Truth^s unwavering heart 
that is fraught with conviction/^ and the '^'^ deceptive 
notions of mortals/^ Professor Davidson inclines to the 
belief that Themis, the personification of Justice or Law, 
is the goddess to whom allusion is made. She discourses 
first on Truth, which consists in the knowledge that only 
Being is, that there is no Non-Being, no Becoming. 

*' Never it was or shall be ; but the All simultaneously now is 
One continuous one ; for of it what birth shalt thou search for ? 
How and whence it hath sprung? I shall not permit thee to tell me, 
Neither to think of what is not, for none can say or imagine 
How Not-is becomes Is ; or else what need should have stirred it 
After or yet before its beginning to issue from nothing ? 
Thus either wholly Being must be or wholly must not be." 

From this principle of pure Being, which Parmenides 
sets up as absolute, he excludes all change, all relation to 
space and time, all divisibility and movement. It was 
not, it will not be, it is in the eternal present, annulling 
time. 

"Same in the same and abiding, and self through itself it reposes, 
Steadfast thus it endureth, for mighty Necessity holds it — 
Holds it within the claims of her bounds and round doth secure it." 

The ^^ mighty JSTecessity which holds it^^ implies a 
kind of self-limitation on the part of the infinite Being 
of Parmenides. 

" One and the same are thought, and that whereby there is thinking ; 
Never apart from existence, wherein it receiveth expression, 
Shalt thou discover the action of thinking, for naught is or shall be 
other besides or beyond the existent." 



THE ELEATICS. 23 

Thinking produces itself in a thought^ which is iden- 
tical with its being, for outside of this great affirmation 
it is nothing. All thinking is thinking of Being ; the is, 
either expressed or implied, is contained in every affir- 
mation. Being is a thoroughly undivided, homogeneous, 
perfect whole, which Parmenides compares to a well- 
rounded sphere, because it holds and comprehends every- 
thing, and because thinking is not outside but inside of 
itself. The senses, therefore, which perceive change 
and plurality, are deceptive ; only thought, which recog- 
nizes the necessity of Being, and the impossibility of 
Non-Being, conducts man to the truth. 

To the first part of his poem Parmenides added a 
second, devoted to the doctrine of Opinion, wherein he 
seeks to explain the existence of the gods and of the 
universe from physical grounds. He introduces it with 
the remark that having finished his discourse ^^ touching 
the truth,^^ he will now deal with the ^^ notions of 
mortals."*^ Aristotle says that ^"^ being compelled to 
follow the phenomena, and assuming that the One is 
according to reason, and plurality according to sense, ^^ 
Parmenides again lays down the two causes as his first 
principles, hot and cold — meaning, for example, fire and 
earth. The former of these, the hot, he arranges on the 
side of Being, the other on that of Non-Being. The 
light, the fire, is the active principle ; the night, the cold^ 
is the passive. The ^^ mixing ^^ of these contraries is 
effected by the all-controlling Deity, who ^^ gave birth 
unto Love, foremost of all the gods.^^ Supposing the 
other principle to be Hate, as Cicero asserts, we have an 
approach to the doctrine of Empedocles, whose two great 



24 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPIJY. 

physical principles are Friendship and Strife ; or^ in 
other words^ attraction and repulsion. 

Parmenides, seeking to explain the many and the 
changeable, that which has no existence according to his 
fundamental principle, only succeeded in developing 
more completely the contradiction between Being and 
Appearance, between the eternal and the transitory, — a 
contradiction that led Zeno, one of his disciples, to 
attempt the dialectical annihilation of the sensuous 
world, the world of appearance. 

Zeno, — Zeno is said to have been loved by his master 
like a son. He was the first Greek philosopher who 
wrote in prose, and was so renowned as a teacher, says 
Plato, that many came to him for instruction and culture 
from Athens and other Greek cities. It is reported that 
he_ made an unsuccessful attempt to free his country 
from political tyranny, and was put to death amid 
tortures which he endured steadfastly. 

Aristotle calls him the inventor of dialectic. This 
dialectic is well described in Plato^s dialogue of Parmen- 
ides, where Socrates says: ^^I see, Parmenides, that 
Zeno is your second self in his writings too ; he puts 
what you say in another way, and half deceives us into 
believing that he is saying what is new. For you, in 
your compositions, say that all is one, and of this you 
adduce excellent proofs ; and he, on the other hand, says 
that the many is naught, and gives many great and con- 
vincing evidences of this.^^ 

Zeno replies that his writings were meant to protect 
the arguments of Parmenides, and were addressed to the 
partisans of the Many, and intended to show that greater 



THE ELEATICS. 25 

or more ridiculous consequences follow from their 
hypothesis of the Many^ if carried out, than from the 
hypothesis of the existence of the One. 

Zeno sought to prove that the many, the changing, 
all that has relation to space and time, is in itself contra- 
dictory, and does not possess true being. His most cele- 
brated arguments are those wherein he denies motion, 
resting his proofs upon the infinite divisibility of space 
and of time. He says first that motion is impossible, 
because a body cannot move or arrive anywhere without 
passing through an infinite number of intermediate 
places. Suppose the space to be traversed a mile ; this 
mile can be divided into two parts, and again into two, 
and so on infinitely. The moving body must pass over 
these infinite divisions, but the infinite is never-ending ; 
hence it can never reach its goal. It is known that 
Diogenes the Cynic answered this argument by walking 
back and forth in silence, regarding this action as a prac- 
tical refutation of its truth. But Zeno did not deny the 
sensuous certainty of motion ; what he sought was to 
comprehend it through thought. 

His second argument, which I have not space to 
elaborate, maintains that the pursuer can never overtake 
the pursued, however swift the one or slow the other. 
It rests upon the infinite divisibility of time, as the first 
rests upon the infinite divisibility of space. Aristotle 
answers both arguments by showing that time and space 
are not made up of separate points, but are continuous, 
and that the dimensions of the one must correspond with 
the divisions of the other ; that the infinite in division 
must be distinguished from the infinite in extent. 



26 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Zeno adduced other proofs against the possibility of 
motion. The contradictions that he developed we meet 
again in modern philosophy^ in the antinomies of Kant. 

Melissus of Samos is also mentioned by the ancients 
as a member of the Eleatic school. Several fragments of 
his writings are found in Simplicius. His thoughts and 
arguments resemble those of his master^ Parmenides^ but 
are worked out more in detail. 

The Eleatic doctrine forms the chief turning point in 
the history of older speculation. Greek philosophy 
advanced gradually towards the most abstract of all con- 
ceptions, that of pure Being. From this point of view 
it was impossible to explain plurality or change, or the 
phenomena of nature. We first see land, according to 
Hegel, in Heraclitus, who affirms that the truth lies 
neither in Being nor Non-Being, but in both, — in the 
Becoming. 

^' The importance of the Eleatic principle introduced 
into the fabric of European thought influenced our 
language through such words as entity, existence, 
essence. The Eleatics may claim as their own coinage 
the title of all metaphysics — Ontology, or the Science 
of Being. ^^ — J, A. Symonds. 



CHAPTER YII. 

HEEACLITUS. 

HEEACLITUS, called by later writers ^^The Ob- 
scure/^ was born at Ephesus, about 500 B. C. He 
was but slightly esteemed by his fellow-citizens^ and 
esteemed them as slightly in return. The banishment of 
his friend Hermodorus^ whose personal superiority was 
his chief offence in the eyes of the Ephesians, filled the 
soul of Heraclitus with scorn and indignation. It was 
the same principle that led the Athenian democracy to 
ostracise their greatest men. 

Heraclitus wrote a work "^^ Concerning Nature/^ and 
deposited it in the temple of Diana at Ephesus. Soc- 
rates said that what he understood of it was excellent^ 
and he had no doubt that what he did not understand 
was equally good, but it required an expert swimmer. 

Heraclitus was the first to assert that Being and Non- 
Being are the same. ^'^ Everything is and also is not.^' 
^^Into the same stream we descend and at the same time 
we do not descend ; we are and also we are not. For 
into the same stream we cannot possibly descend twice, 
since it is always scattering and collecting itself again, or 
rather, it at the same time flows to us and from us.^^ 
There is nothing firm and enduring in the world, every- 
thing is comprehended in continual change. The visible 
passes into the invisible, the invisible into the visible; 

27 



28 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

one is replaced by the other as light succeeds darkness. 
Upper and under^ beginning and end, mortal and im- 
mortal are the same ; everything is one, everything be- 
comes all. From the living come the dead, from the 
dead the living ; from the young the old, from the old 
the young ; the stream never stands still ; the clay of ex- 
istence is continually moulded into new forms. 

Heraclitus compares the world to a mixture which 
must be constantly shaken to prevent decomposition. 
^^^ Strife is the father of things, ^^ he says. Everything 
exists only in change, and change is a transition from 
one state to its opposite. From conflict comes existence ; 
from contradiction, union ; from discord, harmony ; one 
being produces all, and in the play of conflicting activi- 
ties maintains all as one. ^*^ Unite the whole and the 
not-whole, ^^ says Heraclitus; '^^the coalescing and the 
non-coalescing, the harmonious and the discordant, and 
thus we have the One becoming from the All, and the 
All from the One.'' 

Heraclitus set up fire also as a first principle. But he 
must not be ranked with the Ionian physicists. Fire to 
him is the symbol of the Becoming, the soul as well as 
the substance of the natural process, existing only in con- 
stant change and movement, and thus producing the 
restless pulse-beat of nature. ''^ The universe always was, 
and is, and will be an ever-living fire, which is kindled 
and extinguished according to its own law.'' Water and 
earth are but modes of fire ; fire passes over them in the 
*^^ downward way," and they pass over into fire in the 
^^ upward way," but the two ways are inseparable. 

Man, like* everything in the world, comes from fire. 



HERACLITUS. 29 

But it is in the soul alone that the divine flame is pre- 
served in its purity. Heraclitus regards the body by it- 
self as an object of horror. The purer the fire^ the more 
perfect the soul; ^^the dryest soul is the wisest and best.^^ 
If the fire is polluted^ reason is lost^ and thus madness is 
explained ; the drunkard is not master of himself because 
his soul is damp. During this earthly life our souls are 
dead and buried in us^ but at the death of the body they 
live ; and thus^ says Heraclitus, life and death are indis- 
solubly united. 

Wisdom consists in recognizing reason, which rules 
everything ; ^"^eyes and ears are poor witnesses to men in 
so far as they have barbarous souls. ^^ What our senses 
perceive is only the fleeting appearance, not essence ; the 
ever-living fire is concealed from us by a hundred veils; 
that which seems to us dead and mute is in truth the 
most living and active. The human mind has insight 
only so far as it participates in divine reason. Most men 
live like cattle, says Heraclitus; they are born, beget 
children, and die without finding in life any high aim or 
significance. He who is wise will recognize that it only 
depends on himself to be happy; that the world is always 
as it ought to be, and that he must place himself in har- 
mony with its divine arrangement. He must follow not 
his own individual opinions, but the common law, the 
universal reason which rules everything, sacrificing peculi- 
arities and subordinating himself to the idea of the whole. 

Heraclitus reaches the grand thought that conscious- 
ness of truth is a consciousness of the universal, and 
that error consists in the separation of thinking from 
the divine reason in which it participates. He affirms 



30 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

that man must withdraw from the sensuous world, where 
^^ everything flows/^ into the depths of his own spirit, if 
he would find the steadfast and abiding, the necessity 
and universality of Being, the essence of thought and of 
the world. This is what Spinoza terms ^^ contemplating 
things under the form of eternity. ^^ 

Zeller says that Heraclitus was the first philosopher to 
set up common points of view for the total contemplation 
of nature. To the changeableness and transitoriness of 
single things he opposed the unchangeable similarity of 
universal relations, the one divine law, absolute and un- 
conditioned, throughout the universe. 

His principle of the Becoming is antithetical to that 
of Being as held by the Eleatics ; but both are alike 
valid and demand a conciliation. How is this to be 
effected ? Heraclitus does not solve the problem, for 
he does not explain why everything is comprehended 
in a continuous flow, except by saying that '^^every- 
thing is fire,^^ which is but another way of expressing 
the Becoming. Like the Eleatics, he considers the 
senses unreliable, and appeals from their testimony to 
that of thought. Like them, he regards the world of 
nature as a contradiction ; but he affirms its reality, 
which they denied, and finds in this very contradiction 
the reason of its existence. 

To assert, however, is not to prove, and the question 
returns: Why is all Being Becoming? How are we 
to harmonize the two principles, and explain the world 
of nature and its manifold transformations ? This is 
the problem offered to philosophy which Bmpedocles 
and the Atomists seek to solve. 



CHAPTEK VIII. 

EMPEDOCLES. 

"TpMPEDOCLES was born at Agrigentum, in Sicily, 
-^-^ 490 B. C, and was renowned among the ancients 
as a philosopher, poet, physician and prophet. Unlike 
Heraclitiis, he took an active part in public afEairs, and 
gained such esteem among his fellow citizens by his 
efforts towards establishing a free government that they 
wished to elect him their king, but he refused the honor. 
The following lines, translated from his writings by 
Symonds, show the spirit in which he received their 
proposition: '^^ Friends who dwell in the great city hard 
by the yellow stream of Acragas, who live in the Acropo- 
lis, intent on honorable cares, harbors revered of strangers, 
ignorant of what is vile, welcome ; but I appear be- 
fore you an immortal god, having overpassed the limits 
of mortality, and walk with honor among all, as is my 
due, crowned with long fillets and luxurious garlands. 
No sooner do I enter their proud, prosperous cities than 
men and women pay me reverence, who follow me in 
thousands, asking the way to profit, some desiring ora- 
cles, and others, racked by long and cruel torments, 
hanging on my lips to hear the spells that pacify disease 
of every kind.^^ 

Empedocles refused to be king because he wished to 
be looked upon as a god. That he possessed great medical 

31 



32 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY 

skill for that age and wrought some wonderful cures is 
certain. He is said to have delivered the people of Se- 
linus from a fearful pestilence caused by the fetid exhala- 
tions from a marsh, which he drained at his own expense. 
Upon his appearance afterward at a public banquet he 
was hailed by the nobles of the city as a god, the friend 
of Phoebus, the mediator between angry Deity and suf- 
fering men. The manner of his death is differently re- 
lated. According to one legend he suddenly disappeared 
after a banquet ; according to another he jumped into 
^tna, but the crater cast up one of his brazen slippers, 
and this being found, revealed what he meant to hide — 
the manner of his death. 

The fragments of his writings which we possess are 
mostly from a poem concerning Nature, addressed to 
Pausanias in these words: ^"^ First learn what are the 
four chief roots of everything that is — fiery Zeus and 
Here, and Nestis with her tears, who is the fount of 
moisture in the world. ^^ He thus expressed figuratively 
the doctrine of the four elements, which he was the first 
to adopt. In another passage, he calls them ^^fire, water, 
earth, and air^s innumerable height. ^^ 

These four primal substances, which he regarded as 
eternal and unchangeable, constitute the material part of 
the world. What appears to as as birth and decay is not 
so really, but only a mixture and separation. How this 
mixture and separation are produced is the problem. 
For life no longer resides in matter, as with the old 
lonians ; and the world of change must be denied, or its 
phenomena explained by separating a moving force from 
immovable substance. 



# 



EMPEDOCLES. 33 

Empedocles assumes two moving powers or forces, 
which he personifies as love and hate^ or attraction and 
repulsion. One tends to life^ the other to death ; one to 
unity^ the other t© discord. They reign alternately at 
fixed intervals of time, the elements originally forming 
one including sphere, where love is supreme. But hate 
gradually asserts its power, and the phenomenal world 
comes into existence. '' When hate or strife has reached 
the very bottom of the seething mass, and love assumes 
her station in the centre of the ball, then everything be- 
gins to come together and to form one whole — not in- 
stantaneously, but different substances come forth 
according to a steady process of development. Now, 
when these elements are mingling, countless kinds of f 
things issue from their union. Much, however, remains 
unmixed, in opposition to the mingling elements, and 
these malignant Hate still holds within his grasp. For 
he has not yet withdrawn himself altogether to the ex- 
tremities of the globe ; but part of his limbs still remain 
within its bounds and part have passed beyond. As 
Hate, or Strife, however, step by step retreats, mild and 
innocent Love pursues him with her face divine ; things 
which have been immortal instantly assume mortality ; 
the simple elements become confused by interchange of 
influence. When these are mingled, then the countless 
kinds of mortal beings issue forth, furnished with every 
sort of form — a sight of wonder. ^^ Empedocles asserts 
that human beings were first produced in amorphous 
masses containing the essence of male and female, but 
that being afterward divided the two parts yearned for 
reunion, hence desire and love — a theory worked out by 
Plato in the Symposium. 



34 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Empedocles believed in metempsychosis. He thought 
that all human souls were fallen spirits^ banished to earth 
for some crime, to be restored to their heavenly birth- 
right by purity of life and expiatory rites. " From what 
glory, from what immeasurable bliss/^ he says, ^^ have I 
now sunk to roam with mortals upon the earth ! '^ The 
following eloquent passage, translated by Symonds, oc- 
curs in the exordium of the poem : ^'^It stands decreed 
by fate, an ancient ordinance of the immortal gods, es- 
tablished from everlasting, ratified by ample oaths, that 
when a spirit of that race which has inherited the loigth 
of years divine sinfully stains his limbs with blood, he 
must go forth to wander thrice ten thousand years from 
heaven, passing from birth to birth through every form 
of mortal mutability, changing the toilsome paths of life 
without repose, even as I now roam, exiled from God, an 
outcast in the world, the bondman of insensate strife. 
Alas, ill-fated race of mortals, thrice accursed ! from 
what dire struggles and from what groans have ye been 
born ! The air in its anger drives them to the sea, and 
ocean spues them forth upon the solid land, earth tosses 
them into the flames of the untiring sun, he flings them 
back again into the whirlwinds of the air ; from one to 
the other are they cast and all abhor them. * * * * 
Weak and narrow are the powers implanted in the limbs 
of men ; many the woes that fall on them and blunt the 
edge of thought ; short is the measure of the life in death 
through which they toil ; then are they borne away; like 
smoke they vanish into air; and what they dream they 
know, is but the little each hath stumbled on in wander- 
ing about the world ; yet boast they all that they have 



EMPEDOCLES. 35 

learned the whole — vain fools ! for what that is no eye 
hath seen^ nor ear hath heard, nor can it be conceived by 
mind of man.*" 

Like Xenophanes, Empedocles revered Deity as omni- 
present and omnipotent, the God of gods, pure mind, 
holy and infinite, darting with swift thought through 
the universe from end to end. He does not appear to 
have made any attempt to reconcile this intuition, or his 
belief concerning transmigration, with his physical views. 

There is a conflict of opinion regarding the value of 
his philosophy, but it is held in slight esteem by Plato 
and Aristotle among the ancients, and by Hegel among 
the moderns. He struck into a way where physics followed 
him later when he asserted that the primitive elements of 
things are incapable of qualitative change. He is to be 
regarded with Leucippus as the founder of a mechanical 
explanation of nature. But his system has serious faults. 
He did not explain why there are four elements, or why 
one force could not at the same time unite and separate 
substances. Nor could he prevent the two forces that he 
assumed from encroaching each upon the limits of the other, 
because, as Schwegler says, ^'The complete separation of 
a dividing and unifying power in the movement of the 
Becoming is an unwarrantable abstraction."" The Atom- 
ists were more consistent and logical, though their 
point of view resembled that of Empedocles, and was 
based upon the same general presuppositions. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE ATOMISTS. 

T" ETJCIPPUS and Democritus were the founders of 
-LJ the Atomistic philosophy. Little is known con- 
cerning the life of the first ; but Democritus^ his friend 
and disciple^ was born about 460 B. C. in Abdera. 
According to the statement of Diogenes Laertius^ he 
was forty years younger than Anaxagoras. He is said 
to have been very rich, and to have travelled extensively 
in search of knowledge. He wrote numerous works, of 
which we possess only fragments. His style was praised 
by Cicero for its clearness and elevation, and compared 
to that of Plato. He lived to a great age, ninety or 
one hundred years. 

Aristotle, in the first book of the Metaphysics, describes 
the general point of view of the Atomists as follows : 
^^Leucippus and his friend Democritus affirm that the 
full and the void are elements, calling the first Being, 
and the second Non-Being, and asserting that one is 
no more than the other. ^^ The fullness is composed of 
atoms, infinite in number and indivisible. Between 
them is empty space, or the separating intervals which 
prevent their mutual contact. 

Democritus adduced many arguments in support 
of his doctrine, among others the following: *^ Motion 
requires an empty space, for that which is full can- 

36 



THE ATOMISTS. 37 

not receive into itself any thing else. Multiplicity 
and change are thus rendered possible, while at the 
same time nothing is ascribed to the atoms which 
the Eleatics denied to being. They are absolutely 
simple and homogeneous, substance as such destitute 
of quality. Atoms can only be an object of thought, 
not of experience ; for all which we perceive sensu- 
ously is capable of division. Their only difference is 
quantitative. ^^They differ in form/^ says Aristotle, 
^^'^as A. from N. ; in order, as A. N. from N. A.; in 
position, as Z. from 1^/' They have the like specific 
gravity, but vary in magnitude, and therefore in weight. 
All change is change of place, and the sensuous 
attributes of things are traced back to a quantitative 
relation between atoms. 

These atoms are represented in constant motion ; 
but wherefore is not explained except by saying that 
the motion is eternal. Since they differ in magnitude 
and weight, some are forced downward more rapidly 
than others, and the lighter ones are pushed upward, 
giving rise to collisions and a rotary motion, which, 
extending farther and farther, produces an infinite 
number of worlds. Homogeneous elements come to- 
gether in this process, not through chance but through 
necessity, which Democritus set up as a final cause in 
opposition to the (vovg) nous of Anaxagoras. '^^He thus 
approached as near to the teleology which he scorned,^^ 
says Zeller, ''as it was possible to do from his point 
of view.^^ 

After explaining the origin of the earth, Democritus 
turned to living beings, and declared that the soul 



38 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

causes their movements ; and is therefore composed of 
the finest and smoothest atoms, or particles of fire dis- 
tributed through the body. We inhale and exhale soul- 
atoms, and through this double process life is preserved. 

Democritus complained that we know nothing in 
reality, but at the same time distinguished between 
obscure and genuine knowledge, the first being gained 
through the senses, the second through the understand- 
ing ; one is restricted to changing appearances, the 
other is an investigation of principles. 

In his ethical views he attributed little worth to ex- 
ternals, and argued that happiness can only be found in 
the right disposition of mind and heart. Man is to 
enjoy as much and suffer as little as possible. But it 
does not follow from this that sensuous pleasure is the 
highest. Only the goods of the soul are worth seeking, 
those of the body are perishable and unsatisfactory. 
Democritus recommended content, moderation, purity 
of thought and deed, as the way to true happiness. 
Man must limit his desires and his activities to what 
he is able to accomplish ; must be satisfied with what he 
possesses, and not seek or long after the unattainable. 
Knowledge gives the highest and purest enjoyment, and 
that serenity of soul which neither fears death nor 
earthly calamity. 

Schwegler calls the Atomistic philosophy a ^^ media- 
tion between the Eleatic and Heraclitic principles. ^^ It 
asserts with Parmenides the impossibility of the Becom- 
ing as a qualitative change, but on the other hand it 
afiirms with Heraclitus the reality of movement, and 
the relative truth of experience. Through its antithesis 



THE ATOMISTS. 39 

of the fulness and the void it expresses the two move- 
ments of the Heraclitic Becoming, Being and Not-Being. 
It embraces in its investigations a wider field of inquiry 
than any earlier system^ and, though one-sided and un- 
satisfactory, shows nevertheless an advance of thought 
in its attempt to collect and explain scientifically the 
empirical facts of nature. 

Aristotle praises its logic and the unity of its princi- 
ples, though he recognizes the impossibility which un- 
derlies every Atomistic system of deriving the extended 
from that which has no extension, indivisible atoms. 
He also criticises severely the necessity of Democritus, 
the power behind the atoms, which, though distinguished 
from chance, is represented as working blindly and with- 
out design. Anaxagoras first utters the solving word 
in his principle of the nous (vohg). 



CHAPTER X. 

AKAXAGORAS. 

A NAXAGORAS was born about 500 B.C., at Clazo- 
-^^^^ menae^ in Asia Minor. He took no part in public 
affairs^ but devoted himself to scientific pursuits, and 
soon after the Persian war removed to Athens. There 
he lived and taught until, accused of impiety, he was 
compelled to flee to Lampsacus, where he died at the 
age of seventy-two. 

Asia Minor or Italy had been the seat of philosophy 
hitherto ; it was Anaxagoras who first planted it in 
Athens, where it. was to reach the zenith of its glory in 
the systems of Plato and Aristotle. He was surrounded 
by a galaxy of great men, many of whom were his per- 
sonal friends, — Pericles, Thucydides, Phidias, ^schylus, 
Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Protagoras. Athens was at 
its height of political prosperity under the administration 
of Pericles, and the grandeur of its achievements in every 
field of intellectual activity has never since been equaled. 

Hegel speaks of the contrast presented at this time be- 
tween Athens and Sparta. In Sparta the individual was 
so wholly merged in the state that he could not attain 
free development and expression, could not grow morally 
or intellectually. A principle true in itself was carried 
out so one-sidedly that its own essence was lost, since the 
very idea of a state is the voluntary subjection of the 

40 



AKAXAGORAS. 41 

individual to the universal will. In Athens^ on the other 
hand^ the right of subjectivity was recognized, and every 
citizen was free to cultivate and develop to the utmost 
his peculiar talents, and to express himself in whatever 
way he chose, through statesmanship, or history, or 
poetry, or sculpture. From this freedom of the indi- 
vidual sprang those immortal works of genius which still 
challenge our reverential admiration. 

Never did any other people in the world express 
themselves so fully and completely as the Athenians in 
the age of Pericles. Pericles himself as the head of the 
State, occupied a unique position, — a quiet, energetic, 
earnest man, devoting himself supremely to the interests 
of Athens. Anaxagoras was the friend of Pericles, and 
was envied, like Aspasia, for enjoying this honor, and 
exposed to persecution. 

Starting from the same point as his predecessors, 
Anaxagoras reaches the conviction that nature can only 
be explained through the theory of a divine intelligence 
disposing and governing everything. Hence, even in the 
scientific domain, the principle of subjectivity makes 
itself valid. Aristotle praises Anaxagoras for rising 
to the conception of a world -ordering reason, and says 
that in comparison with previous philosophers he ap- 
peared like a sober man among the drunken. But to 
this praise is added censure of the mechanical way in 
which he applied his doctrine, using the nous only when 
he fell into embarrassment through his ignorance of 
natural causes. 

Plato makes a similar criticism in a well-known pas- 
sage of the Phaedo. Socrates, just before his death. 



42 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

relates how rejoiced he was to hear that Anaxagoras 
had set up reason as the cause and principle of the 
worlds and how zealously he applied himself to the study 
of this philosopher's writings^ expecting to learn why 
things are as they are, or, in other words, their final 
causes. His hopes were disappointed. Anaxagoras used 
everything else in the way of explanation except the nous 
— fire, air, water, etc. Socrates illustrates the case by 
saying that Anaxagoras would bring forward his bones 
and muscles as the reason why he, Socrates, is sitting 
there in person, instead of the true cause, which is his 
own will, the opportunity for escape having been offered 
him by his friend Crito. This opportunity his bones and 
muscles would gladly have embraced, fleeing to Megara 
or Boetia, had he not held it better to remain in prison, 
and submit to the punishment inflicted by the laws. He 
acknowledges that without possessing bones and muscles 
he could not do as he thinks best; but to affirm that they 
are the cause of his action, of his remaining in prison or 
escaping from it, is to mistake the matter altogether. 

Anaxagoras assumes the existence of an infinite num- 
ber of elementary substances, differing in quality, as par- 
ticles of flesh, gold, etc. These particles he calls seeds, 
the name '' Jiomoumeria'^ being applied to them later. 
As there are numberless things in the universe, and not 
one exactly like the other, so with these '^ seeds.'' Their 
homogeneous union produces what we call the genesis 
of things ; their separation, what we call decay. Change 
is not qualitative, but mechanical ; substance remains 
the same, but the manner of its composition differs. 

Hegel calls the seeds of Anaxagoras ''^individual- 



A:t^AXAGOIlAS. 43 

ized atoms. ^^ Originally they existed in a chaotic con- 
dition^ but after an indefinite period of time the 7ious 
came^ a moving^ ordering force^ uniting them all into 
one harmonious whole. This process of formation is 
explained at length ; but it is noticeable that mind is 
used only in order to move matter, and is conceived more 
like an impersonal force than a self-conscious intelli- 
gence. Nevertheless, Anaxagoras defines it after the 
analogy of the human spirit, and ascribes to it thinking, 
which can only be applied strictly to a personal being. 
Elsewhere he calls it the finest of all things, describing- 
it with the attributes of substance or force. Its activity 
is represented not as an activity for an end, but as a me- 
chanical movement of matter. This is the point especially 
criticised. 

It could not be expected that Anaxagoras should see 
the whole bearing of his principle, or how completely it 
was to revolutionize the old way of thinking. He stands 
with one foot on the ground of preceding theories, only 
half -conscious how far he has advanced beyond their 
basis. He separates the corporeal from the spiritual, 
but, so far from reconciling the contradiction between 
the two, he scarcely recognizes its existence. Matter is 
conceived as the absolutely mixed, and spirit as the 
separating force ; both are united so closely that we can- 
not question which is first. 

But the light, though faint, begins to dawn in the 
system of Anaxagoras, and is to wax stronger and 
stronger until with Aristotle it illuminates the whole 
domain of philosophic research. Anaxagoras closes 
the old period and opens the new, combining the 



44 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

principles of his predecessors^, and setting up his nous 
as an explanation. Its universal character was not 
at first recognized. It was conceived by the Sophists as 
the subjective thought of individual man instead of 
the divine reason in which all participate. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE SOPHISTS, 



TTNTIL the middle of the fifth century B. C, 
^ the study of philosophy was limited to the few 
disciples gathered around its founders in single cities. 
But at this time a change occurred in the condition of 
affairs. The brilliant successes attained by the Greeks in 
their contests with the Persians had awakened as their 
natural result a passionate striving after freedom, glory, 
and power. The men who had risked their lives for 
their country wished to share in the guidance of its 
affairs, and democracy became the ruling forni of gov- 
ernment. Athens, through its great deeds, was placed at 
the ruling centre of Greek national life, and united in 
itself more and more the intellectual forces and strivings 
of the age. Within a human generation it attained a 
degree of prosperity and power, of glory and splendor, 
unrivaled in history. The traditional means of educa- 
tion no longer sufficed, the claims of the individual 
increased, special culture was required to lift him above 
the high intellectual level of his fellow-citizens. Acute- 
ness of intellect was a general characteristic ; all were 
trained through political activity and multifarious inter- 
course to quick judgment and decisive acting. Through 
the development of dramatic poetry and artistic oratory, 
the hearing of all was sharpened for the beauty of lan- 

45 



46 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

guage and subtleties of expression. Hence the increased 
attention paid to eloquence and to rhetoric^ and the need 
that arose for scientific instruction concerning all things 
useful to civil life. 

Hegel^ in treating of this period, explains the true 
meaning of culture. It is a knowledge of the general 
points of view that pertain to an action or an event, and 
the ability so to conceive them as to have an immediate 
consciousness of all their relations. A judge is acquain- 
ted with the different legal aspects of a case, the various 
laws applicable to the particular case under consideration, 
and sums them up in his consciousness before giving a 
verdict. In the same way, the cultivated man regards 
every object from different points of view, and because 
he sees the matter on all sides conceives it clearly and 
comprehensively. This culture Grreece owed to the So- 
phists, who taught men not only to argue but to think 
concerning matters which they accept intellectually. 

Philosophy had reached a point where its form must 
change. Proceeding from observation of external nature 
it had gradually advanced to the discovery of a spiritual 
force in the soul itself different from the body which 
it ordered and ruled. Spirit therefore appeared the 
higher when contrasted with matter, and man turned his 
thoughts from the investigation of physical problems to 
those presented by his own interior nature. 

That the right way would be found at first could 
hardly be expected. Self-exalted by his newly discovered 
spiritual supremacy, man declared himself the measure of 
all things, not in the universal but in the individual sense. 
Every person could determine what was right ; truth and 



THE SOPHISTS. 47 

goodness ceased to possess absolute validity. Scope was 
given to unlimited egoism, theoretically and practically. 
The public and private life of the age mirrors this prin- 
ciple. '^ Those party struggles which racked Athens 
during the Peloponnesian war, had blunted and stifled 
the moral feeling/^ says Schwegler ; '^^ every individual 
accustomed himself to set his own private interest above 
that of the State and the common weal, and to seek in 
his own arbitrariness and advantage the measuring rod 
of his actions. ^^ 

The most extravagant ideas were formed concern- 
ing popular sovereignty and civil equality. That self- 
ishness which is the curse of all politics seeking 
aggrandizement bore bitter fruit ; moral feeling was 
blunted, and individuals applying the principle, prac- 
ticed by the State, towards private instead of public 
advantage, ceased to regard its welfare as paramount to 
their own special interests, endangering at once the foun- 
dations of law and morality. Frequent changes in the 
laws seemed to justify the belief that they arose, without 
inner necessity, from the caprice of rulers. Advancing 
culture itself tended to weaken the acceptance of old 
institutions and custojns, through keener observation of 
men and wider knowledge of the world and history. 

Scepticism invaded religion ; there was much in the 
old myths opposed to enlightened insight and morality. 
Man recognized himself as the creator of the gods in 
their beautiful marble statues, and discovered in his own 
soul a divinity higher than theirs. Even the development 
of dramatic poetry tended to shake belief. Beginning at 
first with JEschylus in a grand contemplation of the 



48 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

moral wliole^ it descended in Euripides to the analysis of 
mental conditions and emotional states^ subjecting the 
gods more and more to a human measure. The spirit of 
revolution and progress which penetrated the age could 
not be checked and could not fail of expression through 
philosophy. Hence the peculiar character of Sophistry 
and the reproaches brought against it by Plato and 
Aristotle. 

Plato complains that it is difficult to define the Soph- 
ist correctly. The name was first applied to those paid 
teachers who pursued wisdom (do^^arryf) as a calling. Plato 
first and Aristotle afterward narrowed the significance of 
the term. The Sophist^ according to Plato^ is a hunter 
who seeks to capture wealthy young men by promising to 
teach them virtue ; or a trader who traffics in knowledge ; 
or a craftsman who makes gold through controversies, 
etc., etc. Sophistry is an art of delusion ; it consists in 
knowing how to entangle others in contradictions, in an 
assumption of wisdom and virtue without possessing 
either, or even believing in their reality. Aristotle de- 
scribes it similarly as a science limiting itself to non- 
essentials, or as the art of making money with mere 
apparent wisdom. * 

This judgment passed upon the Sophists by the 
two greatest thinkers of Greece, colored the opinions 
of later writers, justifying the assertion of Grote that 
'^few characters in history have been so hardly 
dealt with as the so-called Sophists." Opinions still 
differ as to their historical importance. Grote excul- 
pates them from the charge of corrupt and immoral 
teaching, but asserts that they had '"^ nothing in common 



THE SOPHISTS. 49 

except their profession as paid teachers/^ Hegel, on the 
other hand, finds that they constitute a distinct school of 
philosophic thought, and that the character of their work 
is positive as well as negative. 

The previous method of teaching with the Greeks re- 
quired no teachers except for writing, arithmetic, music 
and gymnastics. Individual youths who desired wider 
culture attached themselves to some illustrious man, not 
for formal instruction, but simply on account of the in- 
fluence that, without express intention, results from free 
personal intercourse. The earlier philosophers had no 
especial school, but imparted their views to a narrow 
circle composed for the most part of personal friends. 
With the Sophists we see a new order of things. On one 
side it is clear that wider knowledge is necessary for 
those who wish to distinguish themselves in public life ; 
on the other side knowledge is sought, not so much for 
itself as for practical utility. Sophistry appears to 
stand on the boundary between philosophy and politics ; 
practice is to be supported by theory, but theory 
itself becomes little more than a means of help for 
practice. 

The Sophists have been censured for their readiness in 
adducing reasons and arguments on both sides of a ques- 
tion. But this is not so much a peculiarity of theirs as 
one belonging to the stage of reflection reached at that 
time. In the worst action there lies some point of view 
from which it can be justified and defended. For in- 
stance, the duty of self-preservation might be pleaded to 
extenuate a soldier^s desertion on the eve of battle. Ex- 
cuses might be found even for the crimes of treachery 



50 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and assassination, and some good motive might be discov- 
ered in every evil action. 

The Sophist knew that everything can be proved. 
Gorgias says in Plato's Dialogues : ^^ The art of the 
Sophists is a greater good than all arts ; it is able to 
persuade as it will the people, the senate, and the 
judges.-'^ The Sophists were acquainted with so many 
points of view that they could lift into prominence 
or degrade into insignificance every duty and law 
hitherto held valid. 

The ordinary consciousness is confused, as frequently 
happens with Socrates, when some opinion or belief 
firmly held is suddenly brought into collision with others 
equally valid. Thus, in the instance mentioned of the 
soldier's desertion, the virtue of bravery which risks life 
is opposed to the duty of its preservation. Dionysodorus 
says : ^^ You want Cleinias to be wise. Then you want 
him to be what he is not, and not to be what he is ? — 
not to be — that is, to perish ? Dionysodorus says : 
'^^ Who lies says what is not, but one cannot say what is 
not — therefore no one can lie.'' 

These fallacies appear trifling to us now, as Jowett 
observes, but were not trifling in the age before logic, 
at a time when language was first beginning to perplex 
human thought. They show us, farther, how the art of 
speech assumed more and more prominence until phi- 
losophy was almost neglected for rhetoric. 

Hegel says that sophistry is a danger that always 
menaces culture. We moderns admire what Plato would 
have termed sophistic grounds of action. ^^ Deceive not 
that you may not lose credit and therefore money. '^ 



THE SOPHISTS. 51 

Similar arguments are brought forward even in sermons 
and moral discourses to recommend the practice of 
virtue. 

Eegarding the accusation brought against the Sophists 
that they used their talents for money-getting, we easily 
discover its basis in the prevalent Greek views on this 
subject. So long as philosophic instruction was confined 
to friends nothing could be said of pay. Plato and 
Aristotle regarded it from this point of view. Wisdom, 
like love, should not be sold, says Socrates, but given as 
a free gift. Plato and Aristotle maintain that the rela- 
tion of teacher and scholar is not one of business, but of 
friendship ; the service of the teacher cannot be weighed 
with money, but can only be returned with love and 
gratitude. Favored by personal prosperity and sharing 
the old Greek prejudice against business, they could 
afford to scorn pecuniary reward for their teaching. But 
to call the Sophists self-seeking and money-coveting 
merely because they received pay for the instruction 
they imparted, is unjust ; unjust even from their ideal 
point of view, since Greek custom permitted painters, 
musicians, rhetoricians, poets, etc., to win life-subsist- 
ence through the work to which they dedicated time 
and power. 

The masses of the people, who, like Plato and Aristotle, 
regarded the Sophists with disfavor, were farther preju- 
diced against them as foreigners, '^'^ destroyers of the old,"*^ 
innovators and revolutionists. Their gains were doubt- 
less exaggerated; only a few showed themselves mean 
and avaricious. Protagoras says: '^When a man has 
been my pupil, if he likes, he pays my price, but there is 



52 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

no compulsion^ and if he does not like^ he has only to 
go into a temple and take an oath of the value of the 
instructions, and he pays no more than he declares to 
be their value. '^ 

Zeller thinks that this prejudice against the Sophists 
as money-makers did more to injure their reputation 
than anything else. But he also notices a risk which is 
incurred when instruction concerning the duties of 
public life is placed exclusively in the hands of teachers 
who are dependent for support on the pay received ; a 
risk that their activity as teachers may be limited to the 
wishes and needs of those scholars who are able to seek 
and pay for instruction. Only a few will see the neces- 
sity of studies whose practical application is not im- 
mediately apparent. If, from the beginning, Sophistry 
was inclined to limit instruction to the useful and prac- 
tical, this one-sidedness must have been strengthened 
by the dependence of Sophistic teachers on the tastes 
and wishes of their listeners. We shall therefore find 
that the Sophists do not teach men concerning the aim 
of their activity, but seek rather to show the means 
which secure individual success. 

But the question arises : Is there a firm basis to be 
found anywhere in the doctrines of the Sophists ? What 
is their final criterion of judgment, since to constitute 
philosophy there must be one ? It is the individual self, 
this particular me, which remains steady when everything 
else wavers, what Hegel calls "^^ particular subjectivity.^^ 
To this single self of mine, to my pleasure, to my vanity, 
to my glory, to my honor, I refer everything, intellect, 
judgment, and all particular conduct. There is no 



THE SOPHISTS. 53 

other court of appeal ', herein lies the danger of So- 
phistry. This individual will of mine is erected into 
an absolute principle ; everything else changes^ but this 
remains steadfast. Truth and goodness have only a 
relative significance ; this thing seems true to me and 
false to another," or good to me and evil to another. 
The standpoints are as many and as widely different 
as individuals. Hence the negative attitude of Sophistry 
towards knowledge and morality. 

Zeller calls the Sophists the Encyclopaedists of Greece^ 
the Aufkldrer (clearers-up) of their age, participating 
in the advantages as well as in the disadvantages of this 
position. He contrasts their boastfulness and assump- 
tion, their unsteady, wandering life, their gold-winning, 
their mutual jealousies, with the earnest humility of 
Anaxagoras and Democritus, the unassuming greatness 
of Socrates, the noble pride of Plato ; he finds that their 
eloquence is but superficial and serves falsehood as well 
as truth, that their scientific views are shallow, their 
moral axioms dangerous. But on the other hand he 
thinks it would be unjust to their real achievements to 
treat them merely as destroyers. He agrees with Hegel 
that the principle of subjectivity first makes itself valid 
in the age of the Sophists. Man reaches the conscious- 
ness that it is necessary to act from personal insight 
and conviction, he loses his veneration for custom and 
tradition, and will accept nothing as true which he has 
not himself tested. But he does not at once discover 
the right direction, the point where he is to place him- 
self in order to preserve his mental and moral equi- 
librium. He recognizes correctly that tradition as such 



54 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

does not prove the truth of an axiom or the authority of 
a law ; but to conclude therefore that truth does not 
exists and that the individual is a law unto himself^ 
is to introduce scientific scepticism and moral confusion. 

So, too, in the sphere of religion. The Sophists are 
not to be reproached that they doubted the existence of 
the old gods of the Greek world, and saw in them only 
magnified reflections of the virtues and frailties of 
human beings. What they needed was to complete 
denial by affirmation, not to lose faith in religion because 
they lost faith in polytheism. 

Nevertheless, Sophistry, with all its shortcomings, is 
the fruit and the organ of the most thorough revolution 
which ever happened in the thought and spiritual life 
of the Greek nation. This people stood on the threshold 
of a new era ; the view opened into a world, hitherto 
unknown, of freedom and of culture. Is it strange that 
they became dizzy on the height so quickly attained, 
that the feeling of self overstepped all limits, that man, 
recognizing the origin of laws in the human will, believed 
himself no longer bound by their authority, that he held 
everything as subjective appearance because he saw 
everything in the mirror of his own consciousness ? 

The one-sidedness of Sophistry could not be avoided. 
The fermentation of the age drove to the surface 
many impure and muddy substances, but the human 
spirit must pass through this fermentation before it 
could purify itself to Socratic wisdom ; and as the 
Germans without a clearing-up period might not have 
had Kant, so the Greeks without Sophistry might not 
have had Socrates and a Socratic school of philosophy. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

INDIVIDUAL SOPHISTS. 

PROTAGORAS. — There were many renowned So- 
phists^ but the first and most celebrated is Protagoras 
of Abdera^ born about 490 B. C. Little is known con- 
cerning his life^ save that it was devoted to study and 
the pursuit of his calling as a public teacher and lecturer^ 
first in Sicily^ afterward in Athens. He was an intimate 
friend of Pericles, with whom he is said to have had an 
argument once, lasting the whole day, as to whether the 
javelin, or the one who threw it, or the one who arranged 
the game, is guilty of the death of a man accidentally hit 
and killed. Protagoras, like Anaxagoras, was accused of 
impiety and banished from Athens. The especial cause 
of his banishment was a writing beginning with these 
words: " Concerning the gods, I know not whether they 
exist or not ; for there is much to prevent the attainment 
of this knowledge in the obscurity of the matter itself, as 
well as in the shortness of human life.^^ All copies of 
the work that could be found were publicly burnt in the 
market-place at Athens, at the command of the state, 
and so far as we know this is the first recorded instance 
of such an auto da fe. Protagoras was drowned at sea 
on a voyage to Sicily, either in his seventieth or nine- 
tieth year authorities differing in regard to his age and 
the time of his death. 

55 



56 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

His fundamental proposition as a philosopher is the 
following: Man is the measure of all things^ of that 
which is that it is^ and of that which is not that it is not. 
Taken in its true sense, this is a grand utterance, but it 
is at the same time ambiguous. Is it man on the side of 
his particularity, the accidental individual, who is the 
measure of all things, or is it the self-conscious reason 
within him, man on the side of his universality, who is 
the measure of all things ? If the first, then the centre 
of all striving is the individual with his egotism and self- 
ishness, his petty interests and aims. It was thus un- 
derstood by the Sophists, and it is the chief ground of 
reproach brought against their teaching. But Socrates 
and Plato emphasize the deeper truth contained in the 
proposition of Protagoras; that man as a thinking, ra- 
tional being is the measure of all things, that reason, 
thought, self-consciousness, is not a special characteristic, 
distinguishing me from my fellow men, but is that in 
which all participate, the universal substance in which 
all alike have their spiritual being. The true measure 
of things is not my thought, nor your thought, but 
tliouglit itself, the absolute within us, mine and yours, 
whose eternal essence is ever the same, unaffected by our 
individual will and opinion. 

Protagoras, however, according to Plato, saw but one 
side of the truth contained in his proposition. Starting 
from the doctrine of Heraclitus, that everything is in a 
constant flow, he applied it to human thought, and de- 
clared that nothing is in itself true or false, but true or 
false only as it is related to the thinking subject. His 
illustrations are drawn from the facts of sensuous per- 



INDIVIDUAL SOPHISTS. 57 

ception. For instance^ it may happen that a wind 
appears cold to one^ warm to another ; we cannot, there- 
fore, say of the wind itself that it is either hot or cold. 
Warmth and cold exist only for us, the feeling, perceiv- 
ing subject. We have first the assertion that nothing is 
in itself as it appears ; and then, that it is true as it ap- 
pears, a contradictory affirmation. We can argue with 
equal justice that the wind is cold, or that the wind is 
warm ; that is to say, truth is relative, but not absolute. 
Protagoras was the first to show how ^* theses might be 
defended and attacked, and contradictory propositions 
maintained on every subject/' He made a scientific 
study of language, distinguishing the gender of nouns, 
the moods of verbs, etc. 

The fallacy of his reasoning and of Sophistic reasoning 
generally consists in giving objective validity to that 
which is merely subjective, the sensuous perception, the 
accidental opinion or caprice of the individual. The 
wind is not cold in itself because it appears so ; that 
which is true of it is the appearance only. The whole 
world of sensuous perception is simply appearance ; we 
can affirm nothing of it except as it is related to thought, 
the thinking, self-conscious subject. Here lies the truth 
of the Sophistic doctrine, a truth developed one-sidedly 
by Protagoras and his followers, yet fruitful in its effects 
on the progress of philosophy. 

Gorgias, — Another famous Sophist was Gorgias, who 
came to Athens during the Peloponnesian war as an 
ambassador from his native city, Leontium, Sicily. He 
remained there for some time, but passed the latter part 
of his life in Thessaly, where he died at an advanced 



58 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

age. The approximate dates of his birth and death ara 
respectively, 483 and 375 B. C. He taught the art of 
rhetoric, describing it as the ^^ worker of conviction.^^ 
He appears to have been greatly admired and esteemed 
by his contemporaries, with the exception of Plato, who 
ridicules his ostentatious appearance, and affirms that 
rhetoric, as taught by Gorgias, is not an art, but a form 
of quackery, a mass of poetic figures and brilliant meta- 
phors, intended to corrupt and delude the mind of the 
listener. It is possible that Plato, in his denunciations, 
refers less to Gorgias himself than to his followers. 

The philosophic doctrine of Gorgias is contained in 
his work ^^ Concerning Not-Being, or Nature/^ It was 
divided into three parts, according to Sextus Empiricus, 
devoted respectively to the enumeration and proof of the 
three following propositions: First, that nothing exists ; 
second, that if anything existed it would be unknowable ; 
third, that if it existed and were knowable the communi- 
cation of the knowledge to others would be impossible. 
Tiedemann says that Gorgias went much farther than any 
man of sound common-sense can go. Hegel thereupon 
replies that one might say the same of any philosopher, 
for what is called sound common-sense is not philosophy, 
and is often very unsound, since it is ruled by the man- 
ner of thinking, the maxims and prejudices peculiar to 
the time. Gorgias did go farther than sound common- 
sense, but so did Copernicus, in the opinion of his age, 
when he affirmed that the earth revolves around the sun. 

The propositions of Gorgias are not so meaningless as 
they appear. He asserts, first, that nothing exists, be- 
eause in order to exist, its being must be derived from 



li^DIVIDUAL SOPHISTS. 59 

another or must be eternal. He then goes on to prove 
that both hypotheses lead to contradictions. If derived 
from another^, it must be either from the existent or the 
non-existent ; but this is impossible according to the 
Eleatic theory. If eternal^ it must be infinite, but the 
infinite is nowhere, and what is nowhere is not. The 
proof of his second proposition, that if anything existed 
it would be unknowable, is as follows: If the knowledge 
were possible, then all that is thought must exist, and we 
could not think the non-existent, Scylla and Charybdis, 
for instance. Gorgias here falls into the idealism of mod- 
ern times, according to which the world of objective 
existence is merely the product of subjective thought. 
He affirms, lastly, that if anything existed, and were 
knowable, the knowledge of it could not be communi- 
cated to others. The eye sees colors, the ear hears sounds, 
but the notion of color cannot be conveyed by sounds, 
nor by words, nor can the notion of sound be conveyed 
by color. How, then, if it is impossible to express 
through one sense what is conveyed to another, can the 
same idea be in two persons, as it must be in order to 
constitute a communication of knowledge, if the persons 
are different one from the other? The dialectic of Gorgias 
is based wholly on the contradictory nature of sensuous 
phenomena, and is unanswerable from the standpoint of 
any physical theory of the universe. 

Other Sophists, — Other well-known Sophists were 
Hippias and Prodicus. Hippias is described as a man of 
honorable character and of great learning, distinguished 
more for rhetorical talent than for his philosophical doc- 
trines, Plato ascribes to him the sentinient that law is 



60 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the tyrant of men^ forcing them frequently to do what is 
contrary to nature. Prodicus was greatly admired by the 
ancients. The saying, ^'^ As wise as Prodicus/^ became a 
proverb. He wrote discourses on moral subjects^ but his 
chief merit rests on the distinctions he made between 
words of similar meaning, synonyms. 

Of the other Sophists we know little, except from the 
testimony of Plato, who describes them in his dialogues, 
one as teaching the law of the stronger, that right is 
might, another as declaring that faith in the gods is the 
invention of wise and cunning statesmen, their dialectic 
art deteriorating and their doctrines illustrating more 
and more the evil consequences resulting from their 
standpoint, the elevation of the subjective opinion and 
will of the individual into an absolute standard of 
thought and action. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SOCRATES. 

ryiHE age of Socrates was the age of the Sophists ; 
-^ Protagoras and Gorgias were his contemporaries. 
Socrates is frequently called a Sophist^ and is held up 
to ridicule in the ^* Clouds ^^ of Aristophanes as the 
representative of Sophistic doctrines. But his teaching, 
in reality, is the positive complement of the Sophistic 
philosophy, whose destructive tendencies he vanquished 
ou their own ground, on the truth implicitly contained 
in their own principles. '"^ Socrates did not grow out of 
the earth like a fungus,''^ says Hegel, '^''but stands in 
definite continuity with his time, and is not only a figure 
of supreme importance in the history of philosophy, 
perhaps the most interesting of all among the ancients, 
but is a world-historical person. For he represents a 
turning-point of the human spirit in upon itself in 
the manner of philosophic thought. ^^ 

Pre-Socratic philosophy proceeded from observation 
of nature ; the Sophists first deviated from physical in- 
quiries, and made man himself a special object of study. 
This direction is the ruling one with Socrates ; he neg- 
lects nature, occupying himself almost exclusively with 
questions whose solution he refers, not to the accidental 
will of the individual, but to true knowledge, the ab- 
solute essence of spirit. Earlier philosophy was dog- 

61 



62 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

matic^ applying itself immediately to the world of nature^ 
and defining its being from single prominent peculiar- 
ities. It was therefore one-sided and contradictory^ and 
could not resist the attacks of the Sophists^ or satisfy 
the need of the time^ 

The basis of the philosophic structure must be 
laid deeper, contradictions must be compared and 
reconciled through some common standard, different 
points of view must be harmonized, thought must 
grasp the real and permanent beneath the changing 
appearance. How was this to be accomplished? Socrates 
answered the problem by developing the content of 
thought itself through a dialectic process of defin- 
ition and division, the art of forming concepts. In 
order to have a clear conception of an object I 
must be able to grasp together its different peculiarities, 
not concluding with the Sophists that they are mutually 
destructive because they contain opposite determina- 
tions, but finding that they complete each other through 
their very contradictions, which are all dissolved in a 
higher bond of unity. To define the conception of 
justice or valor, Socrates would start from individual 
examples, and from these deduce their universal char- 
acter — their true concepts. 

Philosophy, according to this view, begins, not with 
the observation of external but of internal phenomena ; 
not with physics, but with ethics, the truths revealed 
by God to human consciousness. The world of nature 
sinks into the background ; self-knowledge is the 
supreme object of all striving. In the place of dog- 
matism we have dialectic ; in the place of materialism, 



SOCRATES. 63 

idealism. The problem of the world is included in 
the higher problem of self. The question is asked : 
How can true knowledge be obtained ? Socrates offers 
the first solution, asserting that the standard of human 
thought and knowledge lies in a knowledge of concepts, 
which can only be gained by a critical investigation of 
their essence. Plato concludes that objective concepts, 
ideas, are in the true sense the only reality ; and Aristotle 
affirms finally that the concept, or form, constitutes 
the moving power, the soul of things, that the absolutely 
real is pure spirit thinking itself, that thinking is the 
highest reality, and therefore the highest happiness for 
man. '''It is thus one principle, ^^ says Zeller, '''repre- 
sented at different stages of growth, by Socrates, Plato, 
and Aristotle. ^^ Socrates may be called the swelling 
germ, Plato thQ rich blossom, and Aristotle the ripened 
fruit of Greek philosophy, on the summit of its historical 
development. 

LIFE AKD CHARACTER. 

The philosophy of Socrates is closely connected with 
his life and personal character. He was born in the 
year 469 B. C. His father was a sculptor, and Socrates 
himself followed this occupation for a time ; three 
draped figures of the Graces, said to be his work, were 
seen by Pausanias in the Acropolis. His mother was 
a midwife, and he frequently compares his art to hers, 
since it consists rather in helping others to the birth of 
thoughts, than in producing them himself. Little is 
known of his early education, but he must have par- 
ticipated in all the elements of culture to be found 
at that time in Athens. In the dialogue of Phaedo, 



64 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Socrates is represented as passing from the views of 
the early physicists and of Anaxagoras to his own pecu- 
liar point of view ; and although Plato^s testimony is 
doubtless influenced by the Platonic doctrine of ideas, 
it is probable, as Ueberweg says, that Plato transfers 
from his own thought only that which would naturally 
follow from the views held by the historical Socrates. 

Socrates took part in the military campaigns of 
Potida^a, Delium, and Amphipolis, during the Pelopon- 
nesian war, and was distinguished, not only for his in- 
trepidity and endurance, but for saving the lives of his 
fellow-citizens, Alcibiades and Xenophon. He never 
left Athens on any other occasion, except once to attend 
a public festival. He withdrew from political activity 
so far as was consistent with his duty as an Athenian 
citizen, and during the course of a long life held but 
once a public office. It is noteworthy that in this 
position he displayed that fearless adherence to what 
he considered right which characterized all his conduct ; 
he could not be intimidated, either by the wrath of the 
rulers or of the people, to acquiesce in an illegal 
measure. 

It is uncertain at what time Socrates first began to 
devote himself to what he regarded as his peculiar 
mission, the awakening of his fellow-men to moral con- 
sciousness and a desire after true knowledge. He is 
uniformly represented by his followers as a man already 
advanced in years. His mode of instruction was 
wholly different from that of the Sophists. Day after 
day he went to the markets and the public walks, to 
the gymnasia and the workshops, in order to converse 



SOCEATES. 65 

with young and old, with citizens and strangers. He 
would begin with the topic nearest at hand, the trade 
of the cobbler, perhaps, or of the blacksmith, then give 
the discourse such a turn as to elicit from the mind of 
his listener some truth or thought hitherto undiscovered. 
This was the great vocation to which he devoted himself 
unweariedly, contending against the self-conceit, the 
boastfulness and frivolity of youth, seeking to guide 
all with whom he came in contact to true self-knowledge 
and morality. 

His own character is described as a model 'of virtue. 
^'No one,^^ says Xenophon, ^"^has seen or heard any- 
thing unworthy of Socrates ; he was so pious that he 
did nothing without the advice of the gods ; so just 
that he never injured any one in the least ; so much a 
master of himself that he never chose the pleasant in- 
stead of the good ; so discerning that he never failed 
to distinguish the better from the worse ; in a word, 
he was the best and happiest man possible. ^^ 

Plato also extols the simplicity, the moderation, the 
self-control of Socrates, whom he represents as the best 
man of his time, the most just and full of insight, 
inspired by the deepest piety, dedicating his whole life 
to the service of others, and dying a martyr in accord- 
ance with what he believed to be the will of God. 
Other writers dwell upon his Athenian polish and 
urbanity, his cheerfulness and humor, his real kindness 
of heart, and describe him as the perfect model of a 
highly-cultivated man, knowing how to avoid the dis- 
agreeable in his intercourse with others and to stimulate 
into activity whatever was best and most worthy. Ac- 



66 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

cording to his own testimony^ he only became what he 
was after a long struggle with lower passions and im- 
pulses. 

^^He stands before us/^says Hegel^ ^^a finished work 
of classic art^ who has brought himself to this height. 
In a work of art every feature is designed to bring 
out one idea^ to represent one character^ that it may 
constitute a living and beautiful creation ; for the 
highest beauty consists in the most complete develop- 
ment on all sides of individuality according to one 
inner principle. The great men of that time are such 
works of art. The highest plastic individual as a 
statesman is Pericles^, and around him like stars^ 
Sophocles^ Thucydides^ Socrates^ etc.^ have worked 
out their own individuality and given it a peculiar 
character^ which is the ruling, innermost principle of 
their being and culture. Pericles lived only for this 
aim, to be a statesman ; and Plutarch relates that he 
never smiled or went to a banquet after he devoted 
himself to statesmanship. Thus did Socrates also, 
through his art and the power of self-conscious will, 
develop in himself this definite character^ and acquire 
this skill in his life-vocation. Through his principle 
he gained an influence still active in religion, science, 
and right, because since him the genius of inner con- 
viction is the basis which is valid first of all to man.^^ 

But Socrates is, nevertheless, a thorough Greek, and 
cannot be taken as the universal moral standard for all 
time. Plato in a characteristic scene describes the 
moderation of Socrates in regard to wine, which was 
in reality no moderation according to the usual sense 



SOCRATES. 67 

of the word^ since the simple fact is that he can drink 
more wine than others without being intoxicated. Was 
he able to do this^ as Hegel intimates^ through the 
power of self-conscious will ? His moderation is cer- 
tainly not asceticism^ and his self-control is not self- 
denial^ but consists rather in a state of mental freedom 
which is never lost amid the seductions of the senses. 

Another peculiarity of his character^, purely Greeks 
was his ardent friendship for young men^ and his neg- 
lect of the domestic relation. Whatever may be the 
truth in regard to the ill-nature of Xanthippe (and 
she has not been without her defenders), it is certain that 
a man like Socrates would have tried the patience of 
any modern wife or mother. But we must not forget 
that this was one great blemish of Athenian civilization, 
— the exclusion of wives, mothers, and sisters from social 
and intellectual companionship with their husbands, 
sons and brothers. 

On the one side, the peculiarities of Socrates are 
essentially Greek ; on the other, essentially modern. 
His own personal appearance expressed the contradiction 
between the outward and the inward, so foreign to the 
classic ideal. The ugliness of his face and figure, his 
neglect of beauty of form in his philosophic discourses, 
and the homely illustrations which he used drawn from 
the most prosaic trades and occupations, must have 
offended the artistic instinct of the Greeks, and en- 
hanced for them the singularity of his appearance. Plato 
represents him, in the Phaedrus, as refusing to walk out 
because he can learn nothing from the trees and from 
the country. 



68 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

United with this indifference to the external world was 
an absorption in his innermost self^ which at times seemed 
half to overpower the clearness of his consciousness. To 
this may be referred the ecstatic states^ described in 
Plato^s Symposium, and that demo7iic revelation^ known 
as the " Genius^^ of Socrates, which he ascribed without 
farther analysis to divine agency. 

Plato and Xenophon mention only demonic signs, 
and nowhere speak as if Socrates believed in a personal 
demon. Hegel compares the voice heard by Socrates to 
that prophetic knowledge sometimes evinced by the dy- 
ing, or those very ill, inexplicable from the standpoint of 
ordinary consciousness. In the Apology, Socrates says : 
^^Some may wonder why I go about in private, giving 
advice and busying myself with the concerns of others, 
but do not venture to come forward in public and advise 
the State. I will tell you the reason of this. You have 
often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to 
me, and is the divinity which Miletus ridicules in the 
indictment. This sign I have had ever since I was a 
child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always 
forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but 
never commands me to do anything, and this is what 
stands in the way of my being a politician. ^^ 

Had the voice been that of conscience it would have 
commanded as well as forbidden, and would have been 
concerned with the moral value and worthlessness of an 
action, rather than its consequences. One explanation 
considers it as a kind of practical insight, or tact, an 
immediate conviction of the suitableness or unsuita- 
bleness of certain actions, resulting partly from life- 



SOCRATES. 69 

experience, partly from self-knowledge, but transformed 
according to the spirit of the time into a divine revela- 
tion. 

Hegel thinks that it occupied the middle ground 
between the external Greek oracle and the purely in- 
ternal oracle of spirit, marking the transition of human 
consciousness from reliance on outward to reliance on 
inward authority. The Greeks, with all their freedom, 
did not decide from subjective conviction, but in doubt- 
ful matters concerning the state, or mere private 
affairs, consulted the oracle. They had not reached 
the modern standpoint which demands the testimony 
of the spirit within for every decision. It is the 
principle of Socrates which effects this world-conversion, 
and Socrates therefore unites in himself the charac- 
teristics of Greek and of modern consciousness ; ^'^distin- 
guished from all his contemporaries,^' says Zeller, *^by 
that power of inward concentration, so foreign to his 
race, through- which an invisible breach first took place 
in the plastic unity of Greek life."" 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE FATE OF SOCRATES. 

IN his seyeiitieth year, Socrates was brought to trial 
by his fellow-citizens in Athens. The accusation 
against him consisted of two points : that he was neg- 
lecting the gods of the state^ and introducing new 
deities^ and that he was corrupting the youth. The 
accusers were Meletus, a poet^ Anytus, a demagogue^ 
and Lycon^ an orator^ — men of comparative insignifi- 
cance in the state. 

It was contrary to the nature of Socrates to de- 
fend himself by means of the artful oratory then 
practiced in Athens. He relied on the simple truth, 
and left the issue in the hands of God. His lan- 
guage was not that of a criminal, but of an impartial 
reasoner who would fain dispel erroneous notions. He 
would not condescend to address the judges in terms of 
entreaty. His proud and dignified bearing offended the 
members of a popular tribunal accustomed to deference 
and homage from the most eminent statesmen and gen- 
erals. He was pronounced guilty by a small majority. 
But according to the Athenian laws he was left free to 
express an opinion as to the punishment he should re- 
ceive^ this expression being an implied acknowledgment 
of guilt. He refused to name any punishment^ but de- 
clared himself worthy of reward as a benefactor of the 

70 



THE FATE OF SOCRATES. 71 

state. Finally, however, he yielded to the entreaties of 
his friends, and consented to a fine of thirty minse, which 
he could pay without owning himself guilty. He was 
thereupon condemned to death. 

The execution of the sentence was delayed thirty days, 
until the return of the sacred ship from Delos. Socrates 
employed the time in social intercourse with his friends, 
retaining through the whole period his accustomed cheer- 
fulness and serenity. He scorned, as unworthy, the 
means of escape offered by his friend Crito, believing 
that, as a citizen of the state, he ought to obey its 
laws and submit to its sentence of death. This seems 
slightly at variance with his refusal to acknowledge him- 
self guilty. But the refusal was based on a higher law 
than that of the state, '' The unwritten laws of God 
that know no change. ^^ Conscious of the right, Socrates 
would not yield. He acknowledged the sovereignty of 
the people with this one exception. 

The competence of the court is presupposed to-day, 
and the sentence is executed without farther formalities ; 
regard is paid rather to the act than to the disposition of 
the subject. But the Athenians required that the decree 
of the court should be sanctioned by the convicted man 
himself, who was left free to estimate his own punish- 
ment and thereby acknowledge the justice of his sen- 
tence. Socrates, who stood acquitted before the bar of 
his own individual conscience, opposed this acquittal to 
the conviction of the judges. 

But the first principle of a state is this : that there 
is no higher reason, or conscience, or justice, than 
that which the state recognizes. Hence the fate of 



72 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Socrates is truly tragic^ like the fate of Antigone. There 
is a conflict between his duty to the state and his 
duty to himself ; between the law of the land and 
the diviner law within his own breast. Two moral 
forces come into collision one with the other^ and this 
is what is meant by the tragic and tragedy. The fate 
of Socrates is not merely personal ; it is the tragedy of 
Athens^ of Greece. Two rights^ equally valid^ are op- 
posed to each other ; the right of objective freedom 
secured by life in and for the state^ and the right of 
subjective freedom^ of the individual conscience. The 
Athenian people had reached that point in their develop- 
ment when the state^ the outward manifestation of their 
national spirit^ no longer satisfied the inner needs of the 
individual. In condemning Socrates to death they com- 
mitted the injustice of making him pay the penalty of 
that which was historically the fault of all, if fault it 
were. 

Plato has given us a touching and beautiful picture of 
the last hours of Socrates. They were passed in quiet 
converse with his friends on the subject of immortality. 
When the final moment came he calmly drank the cup of 
poisoned hemlock, conscious that death would strengthen 
his influence and give to his life and work the highest 
stamp of truth. 

Different opinions have been held by different writers 
as to the causes and the justice of his condemnation. 
Hegel believes that both Socrates and the Athenian peo- 
ple were alike innocent and alike guilty ; that Socrates 
was the representative of the modern spirit, the principle 
of subjectivity, the individual conscience, as opposed to 



THE FATE OF SOCRATES. 73 

the unreflecting Greek morality resting on the basis of 
tradition. 

But the Athenian people themselves had advanced 
beyond their old standpoint ; they too^ as well as Socrates^ 
were in part children of the new time. The moral 
life of Greece rested originally on authority ; Socrates 
substituted instead personal conviction. The indi- 
vidual is not simply to obey the law, he is to discover, 
in and for himself, its reason and its justice. • Socrates 
spent his life in examining the current notions respecting 
morals, seeking their causes and testing their truth. The 
examination led him to the same results, essentially, as 
those which were established by custom and tradition. 
Nevertheless, his attitude towards the old Greek morality 
was a critical attitude. If man is to follow his private 
convictions he will agree with the popular will only when 
it agrees with his own. If the two conflict there is little 
doubt what side he will espouse. This is the principle 
avowed by Socrates in the celebrated declaration that he 
would obey God rather than the Athenians. 

Plato says there was a general belief that the teaching 
of Socrates was of a dangerous character, and he adds 
that it was then impossible for any one to speak the truth 
in political matters without being persecuted as a vain 
babbler, a corrupter of youth. It is certain, from the 
testimony of Xenophon and Aristophanes, that the preju- 
dice against Socrates was not confined to the masses, but 
was shared by men of influence in the state. Aijisto- 
phanes, an enthusiastic admirer of the ^'^good old times, ^^ 
was bitterly hostile to the new ideas introduced into 
Athens by the Sophists, among whom he classed Socrates 
as the most dangerous. 



74 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Aristophanes and the Aristophanic comedy are as 
much a product of the time as Socrates and the 
Socratic philosophy ; both are stars of lesser and greater 
magnitude in that brilliant galaxy which constitutes 
the glory of Athens. Aristophanes^ though sincere in 
his advocacy of the old and his scorn for the new^ was 
himself infected by the very spirit which he attacks^, the 
spirit of progress. His representation of Socrates in the 
^^ Clouds'' though an unmistakable likeness^ is not only 
exaggerated^ but essentially false, ''^and can only be des- 
ignated/^ says Schwegler, ^^as a culpable misunderstand- 
ing, and as an act of gross injustice, brought about by 
blinded passion ; and Hegel, when he attempts to defend 
the conduct of Aristophanes, forgets that while the comic 
writer may caricature, he must do it without having re- 
course to public calumniation.'^ 

The charge brought by Aristophanes against Socrates 
was three-fold: that he devoted himself intellectually to 
useless subtleties ; that he rejected the Athenian gods ; 
and finally, that he was able by Sophistic reasoning to 
gain for the wrong side the victory over the right, to 
make the weaker argument appear the stronger. That 
the comedy of Aristophanes was the originating cause of 
the persecution directed against Socrates is improbable, 
yet it doubtless expressed what others thought, and could 
not have been without its influence, for twenty-four years 
later, when Socrates was legally accused and convicted, it 
was .upon similar grounds to those brought against him in 
the '' Clouds.'' 

All the charges seem to rest upon misunderstand- 
ings and false inferences. For instance, it was said 



THE FATE OF SOCRATES. 75 

that he rejected the gods of the State^ and substituted 
in their place a deity of his own, his demon. This was 
untrue. He worshipped in the Athenian temples like 
his fellow-citizens ; his demon was not a new god, but a 
private subjective oracle. Socrates, according to Hegel, 
is the hero who substitutes for the Delphic god and the 
Delphic oracle this principle: man must find in himself 
that which is true. The thinking self-consciousness, not 
the external oracle, is the final authority. This inner 
certainty was in truth a new faith differing from the old, 
but not a new god in the sense meant by his accusers. 

It was also said that Socrates had corrupted the Athe- 
nian youth. Here again he is identified with the Sophists; 
the charge is the same as that brought against their 
teaching. The views of Critias and Alcibiades are un- 
justly ascribed to his influence ; and it is concluded that 
he taught men to despise their parents and relations be- 
cause he counselled Anytus to educate his son for some- 
thing higher than the leather business. The inference is 
unfair, though it is a delicate matter for a third person 
to interfere in the relation between parent and child. 

Nothing in the shape of actual deeds could be laid to 
the charge of Socrates. He conscientiously fulfilled his 
duties as a citizen, and never transgressed the laws of the 
State. His political theories did not correspond with the 
existing Athenian institutions, but this was not a crime. 
He did not believe in awarding power by lot or election, 
but according to the qualifications of individuals. This 
may have led to his being suspected of aristocratic lean- 
ings by the Athenian democracy. But it could not affect 
the purity of his character as a citizen. Nevertheless, the 



76 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

whole character of his philosophy^ the demand for self- 
knowledge^ the inward turn given to thought^ must have 
weakened in himself;, and in his disciples^, that attachment 
to political life which was the soul of Greek activity. 
Even his demon^ his subjective oracle^ was dangerous in 
a country where oracles had not only a religious but a 
political significance. 

Zeller calls Socrates the precursor and founder of our 
moral view of the world ; but adds^ that to one starting 
from the old Greek view of the state and of rights, his 
condemnation cannot appear altogether unjust. The 
truth was that in Athens itself the old morality was de- 
caying, and that Socrates simply entered into the spirit 
of his timC;, trying to reform it by means of itself^, instead 
of uselessly attempting to bring back a type of culture 
that was gone forever. It was a mistake to hold him re- 
sponsible for the corruption in faith and morals which he 
was trying to check in the only way possible. Zeller 
thinks that his condemnation was not only a great in- 
justice according to our conception of right, but was a 
political anachronism according to the standard of his 
own time. A reformer who is truly conservative is at- 
tacked by nominal and imaginary restorers of the good 
old times. The Athenians, in punishing him, gave them- 
selves up for lost ; for in reality it is not for destroying, 
but for attempting to restore morals that he is punished. 

Aristophanes and his followers took one way to rebut 
the Sophists ; Socrates took another. He too, like the 
Sophists, emphasizes the principle of subjectivity ; but he 
shows that the truth lies not in the feeling of self, which 
is egotistic and exclusive, but in the idea of self, which is 



THE FATE OE SOCRATES. 77 

universal and comprehensive. Confounded with the So- 
phists by his accusers^ the higher principle of Socrates 
was misunderstood and misinterpreted. The spirit of 
Athens was divided within itself ; its internal rupture 
was reflected in its declining strength and power^ and 
finally it yielded its independence^ and became subject, 
first to Sparta, then to Macedonia. 

Socrates died twenty-nine years after the death of 
Pericles, and forty-four years before the birth of Alexan- 
der. He witnessed the glory and the decline of Athens, 
its culminating point of splendor and the beginning of its 
ruin. 



OHAPTEE XV. 

THE SOURCES AND CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SOCRATIC 

PHILOSOPHY. 

SOCRATES committed nothing to writings and our 
knowledge of his doctrines is derived from the ac- 
counts of Xenophon^ Plato and Aristotle. Though it is 
doubtless true that in Plato^s Dialogues the thoughts of 
Plato himself are frequently placed in the mouth of Soc- 
rateS;, the elements peculiar to each are easily discernible. 
Plato^s picture of Socrates agrees substantially with that 
of Xenophon in those dialogues wherein he claims to be 
true to facts^ the Apology and the Symposium. Socrates 
had been dead six years when Xenophon wrote the Me- 
morabilia and the Symposium^ partly from his own recol- 
lection, partly from that of his friends. He was present 
in person at some of the scenes which he describes ; when 
he was not present he mentions his authority. But 
Xenophon appears to have been a practical man, deficient 
in the philosophical sense ; his representation of Socrates 
is therefore one-sided. He emphasizes the ethical, but 
neglects the scientific side of the Socratic teaching. It 
was the union of the two that constituted its peculiarity. 
Socrates recognized that morality must be established 
on a scientific basis before reform is possible. I must not 
only do what is right ; I must do it with a clear con- 
sciousness that it is right. Socrates could not distinguish 

78 



THE SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 79 

between morality and knowledge ; in this^ as Zeller ob- 
serves^ he was the child of his age. He sought to reform 
morals by means of knowledge ; and the two were so 
closely associated in his own mind that he could find no 
object for knowledge except human conduct;, and no 
guarantee for conduct except knowledge. Hence the deep 
importance attached to the personality of the thinker, 
the impossibility of considering the philosophy of Soc- 
rates apart from his life and character. 

^^ In Socrates commences an unbounded reference to 
the person/" says Hegel, ^'^to the freedom of the inner 
life."" This is the source of his one-sidedness ; he directs 
all his activity and striving towards morals, and neglects 
the other sciences. He teaches each one to find as the 
essence of his own individual being the absolute and uni- 
versal concept of the good. Consciousness turns inward 
upon itself, and tests the validity of every moral axiom 
by an inner standard of right. That it is a decree of the 
state or the will of the gods is not enough ; the moral 
consciousness asks: Is it true in itself ? This return 
into itself is the highest bloom of the Athenian spirit, a 
point of culture not reached by the Spartans. But it is 
fraught with danger. It is the isolating of the individual 
from the universal, the care of man for his single self at 
the cost of the state, a higher and more comprehensive 
self. Morality wavers when man makes for himself, in- 
dividually, his own laws and maxims. 

But Socrates penetrated to the kernel of the matter, 
and found at the basis of self-consciousness an absolute 
moral authority. He taught men to find the good and 
the true within their own thought. That knowledge 



80 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

is elicited from the mind itself^ that it comes from 
within and not from without^ is a thought contained 
in the doctrine of Socrates^ but developed more fully 
by Plato. No external power can force a man to 
thinks he must think for and from himself. To learn 
is only to become acquainted with external things 
through experience. But the knowledge of universals^ 
the only true knowledge^ belongs to thought. Nothing 
is valid^ according to Socrates^ without the inner 
testimony of the spirit. Hegel thus expresses it: 
^^ As it is said in the Bible^, flesh of my flesh and bone 
of my bone^ so that which is true and right to me must 
be spirit of my spirit.'^ There is that within me^ 
planted by nature^ belonging to me as a particular 
individual;, the selfish self ; there is that within me^ 
higher and holier^ a part of the divine reason^ belong- 
ing to me as an immortal person^ the unselfish self. 
Socrates opposed the second to the firsts man the uni- 
versal to man the particular. The Sophists insisted 
upon the feeling of self^ which is egotistic and ex- 
clusive ; Socrates insisted upon the idea of self^ which 
is universal and inclusive, ^^the true equalizer of 
the human race.^^ 

His philosophy starts from the Delphic oracle, 
^^Know thyself/^ and involves a thorough sifting and 
testing of the general concepts found within the mind. 
The majority of men confine themselves to supposi- 
tions and traditionary facts, whose accuracy they 
neither question nor examine. They think themselves 
wise when in reality they know nothing. This is the 
meaning of the Delphic oracle that calls Socrates the 



THE SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 81 

wisest of men^ wisest in this^ that he is conscious of 
his own ignorance. To possess this consciousness 
is most helpful to the seeker after truths who must 
have an open eye^ a single purpose, and an honest 
mind to receive it when it comes. 

Socrates taught men to think for themselves, to 
analyze their language and thoughts, to test their 
opinions, to reason from the particular and contin- 
gent to the universal and necessary. Instead of vague 
notions, he sought to obtain correct concepts of every 
object, by considering it on all sides, under different 
points of view, that his knowledge of it might be 
true instead of imaginary. The soul of his teaching 
is contained in the principle that true knowledge must 
proceed from correct concepts. The ordinary way is 
to accept things as they appear to the senses ; but 
when man begins to reflect he begins also to correct 
his sensuous impressions by means of thought. What 
is thought ? Can you think a single thing, a maple, 
for instance, without including in your thought the 
class, or genus tree, to which it belongs ? Does not 
the essence of thinking consist in having something 
more present to the mind than that which ostensibly 
claims the attention ? This something more is what 
Socrates seeks to analyze and define, the general con- 
cept as distinguished from the particular sensuous im- 
pression. 

According to Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, Socrates 
introduced the method of inductive reasoning and of 
logical definition, which constitutes the basis of 
scientific investigation. How these elements stand 



82 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

related to his fundamental principle of self-knowledge 
will be shown presently. 

His method was not something clearly defined in 
his own consciousness^ but a natural manner of philos- 
ophizing and imparting instruction peculiar to himself. 
He sought first to convince men of their ignorance. 
Nothing is more fatal than to believe you know what 
you do not know. Nothing is more essential than to 
distinguish between what you know and what you only 
think you know. Self-examination is a preliminary 
step to the attainment of true knowledge ; self-delusion 
is a frequent source of error. Socrates by a series of 
skillful questions exposed the last^ and stimulated men 
to attempt the first. Apparently ignorant and eager 
to be instructed by those with whom he converses^ he 
accepts their opinions only to entangle them afterwards 
in contradictions and absurdities^, deducing unexpected 
consequences, and confusing them more and more until 
finally their supposed knowledge vanishes. This is 
the celebrated Socratic irony, the critical factor in the 
Socratic method, assuming its peculiar form from the 
presupposed ignorance of the one who uses it as an 
instrument. The subject upon whom it is practised 
discovers that he knows nothing, and regards all his 
previous notions and beliefs distrustfully. It is not a 
sceptical denial of knowledge on the part of Socrates, 
but an acknowledgment of his own ignorance, and a 
discovery of the ignorance of those to whom he ap- 
plies his testing process. ^^The idea of knowing was 
an infinite problem to Socrates, ^^ says Zeller, ^^ opposite 
which he could only be conscious of his own uncertainty/^ 



THE SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 83 

Socrates, like the Sophists, questions all that had 
previously passed for truth ; but he goes farther, he 
strikes out a new road for its attainment, leading to a 
new world of thought, whose conquest is reserved for 
Plato and Aristotle, but whose discovery is due to 
Socrates himself. Not finding in himself what he 
sought, he applied to others ; love of knowledge is an 
impulse to friendship, and the blending of the two 
constitutes the Socratic Eros. By a kind of art that 
he calls intellectual midwifery, he sought to help into 
the world thoughts that lie latent in every one^s con- 
sciousness. This is the positive side of his interrogatory 
analysis, an attempt to produce real knowledge, which 
according to his idea and method can only proceed from 
true concepts. 

His method is that of induction. Starting from 
the simplest object and the most common notions 
concerning it, he analyzes them so thoroughly as to 
bring out the opposition which each contains within 
itself, or in relation to. some other ; corrects one-sided 
assumptions by additional observations ; and succeeds 
finally in separating that which belongs to the essence 
of the object from that which is accidental and contin- 
gent. It is a process of definition, the art of forming 
concepts. It is also a culture of self-consciousness, the 
development of reason. The child and the savage 
dwell in a world of concrete single representations ; the 
adult and the civilized man live amid thoughts and 
abstractions. Illustrations that appear tedious and 
trivial to us in our present stage of reflection were 
essential to clearness of expression in the age of Socrates. 



84 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The important element in his dialogues is their 
method, the fact that what were formerly unexplained 
hypotheses and unconscious guess-work is now arrived 
at by a process of thinking. His investigations are 
directed mainly towards the necessity of knowledge and 
the nature of morality, towards moral and intellectual 
self -analysis. The critical discussions in which he en- 
gages oblige the speakers to consider what their notions 
imply, and the aim of their actions. 

The problem of philosophy for Socrates, according 
to Aristotle, is to seek for the essence of virtue, and 
virtue is regarded as a knowing. Socrates seeks to 
define the concept of temperance, of valor, of justice, 
because according to his idea a knowledge of their 
real essence constitutes the only safe moral guide. 
Schwegler characterizes the Socratic method '^'^as the 
skill by which a certain number of given, homogeneous 
and individual phenomena was taken, and their logical 
unity, the universal principle which lay at their basis, 
inductively found. This method presupposes the recog- 
nition that the essence of the objects must be compre- 
hended in the thought, that the conception is the true 
being of the thing. Hence we see that the Platonic 
doctrine of ideas is only the objectifying of this method 
which in Socrates appears no farther than a subjective 
dexterity. The Platonic ideas are the universal concepts 
of Socrates posited as real individual beings. ^^ 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SOCRATIC ETHICS. 

THE leading thought of the ethics of Socrates is 
expressed in the sentence : All virtue is true 
knowledge. ^^ Socrates^ by laying down thought^ or more 
strictly self -consciousness^ as the groundwork of ethics/^ 
says Prof. Eerrier^ ^^ supplies the truest of all founda- 
tions for a system of absolute morality^ and contains 
the germ of all the ethical speculations^ whether polemi- 
cal or positive^ which have been unfolded since his 
time."^ 

We cannot do right without knowing what right 
is ; to know it and not to do it appeared impossible 
to Socrates. No man^ according to his theory, is vol- 
untarily vicious. If he knew that thinking was his 
real self, his real nature, and that appetites and passions 
are enslaving forces, he would aim at their restraint, 
and at the preservation of his true being and personality. 
Man does not pursue evil unless he thinks it good for 
himself, unless he mistakes the essence of his own 
nature, and believes that it consists of sensation instead 
of thought. Eight action follows necessarily from a 
knowledge of the right, according to the Socratic prin- 
ciple ; wrong action, from an absence of knowledge. 
As regards the virtue of bravery, Socrates argued that 
he who recognizes the true nature of an apparent danger 

85 



86 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and the means to meet it^ has more courage than he 
who does not. Nothing is more essential morally than 
self-knowledge ; because he who knows himself truly 
will unfailingly do what is right, while he who is igno- 
rant of himself, or who mistakes apparent for real 
knowledge, will do wrong. With Socrates, knowledge 
is not merely an indispensable condition, and means of 
help to virtue, but it is the whole of virtue. 

Plato and Aristotle correct this one-sidedness. Aris- 
totle objects that Socrates does not distinguish between 
the intellectual and the emotional parts of the soul, that 
he deprives our virtuous affections of the warmth and 
spontaneity by which they are characterized. What is 
wanting in Socrates is the side of subjective reality 
which we call the heart. Knowledge is essential to 
virtue, but is not the whole of virtue, or virtue would 
belong only to thought, to the intellect alone. 

The experiences of the time convinced Socrates that 
tradition and custom, even the authority of the laws, 
could not oppose moral scepticism ; that the basis must 
be laid deeper, that the activity of man must be guided 
by clear and definite knowledge. If the question is 
asked. Knowledge of what ? Socrates replies. Of the 
Good. But what is the good ? The good, according 
to his definition, is the concept of knowledge treated 
as an aim, or knowledge itself in its practical applica- 
tion ; an explanation indeterminate enough to admit 
of various interpretations. Socrates at one time ex- 
plains the good as the useful, and apparently recom- 
mends virtue because it is most richly rewarded by God 
and man. At another time he qualifies this statement 



THE SOCKA.TIC ETHICS. 87 

by saying that virtue is useful because it is connected 
with the health of the soul, the divine part in man, the 
seat of reason. 

It is certainly a contradiction, as Zeller says, to 
explain virtue as the highest aim of life, and at the 
same time to recommend it on account of the advan- 
tages it brings. But this contradiction proceeds from 
the abstract character of the concept of virtue, and 
the impossibility of deriving definite moral activity 
from the general principle that virtue is a knowing. 
Kant is not wholly free from the same inconsistency. 
He rejects most decidedly every moral standard based on 
experience, and yet, in determining the maxims suited 
to the principle of universal legislation, determines 
them according to the consequences which would follow 
were they universally adopted. The defect in the ethics 
of Socrates is not so much a want of moral value as 
of scientific reflection. 

Though accident in a great measure guided the 
discourses of Socrates, there were three points, according 
to Xenophon, that he treated with especial preference. 
The first was the independence of the individual through 
the limitation of his wants and desires ; the second 
was the ennobling of the life of the soul through friend- 
ship; the third and most important was the further- 
ance of the common weal by an ordered life in and for 
the state. Man, according to Socrates, only becomes 
master of himself through freedom from needs, and 
the exercise of his thinking faculty ; if dependent on 
bodily conditions and enjoyments, he is a slave. 

Socrates did not shun sensuous pleasures, but was 



88 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

able to preserve in the midst of them perfect control of 
himself and of his thought. A thorough Greeks he 
aimed at moderation and freedom of mind rather than 
asceticism. He appreciated highly the worth of true 
friendship^ affirming that it was conformable to man^s 
nature^ and necessary for mutual help and interchange of 
ideas. So far as it proceeds from human needs and 
wants it is based on utility ; but Socrates conceives it also 
in its ideal form^ existing only for the sake of the 
good. In his low estimation of marriage and the office 
of woman in the household, he agreed with his fellow- 
countrymen, and speaks '' like the husband of Xanthippe 
rather than the friend of Aspasia.^^ Yet he expressly 
acknowledges his indebtedness to one woman, Diotima, 
and says that she was his teacher in the love of wisdom, 
or philosophy. His own conduct shows little regard 
for domestic life. He considers the state and not the 
family, as the, chief object of moral activity, and here 
again he is purely Greek. He not only requires the most 
unconditional obedience to the laws, but wishes every- 
one of ability to take part in their administration, since 
the welfare of individuals depends on the welfare of 
the community. 

This is in accordance with the old Greek view of 
the state; but he departs from it widely in other re- 
spects. He demands that everyone who aspires to be 
a statesman shall prepare himself by a thorough course 
of self-analysis and discipline, and only recognizes a 
right and a capacity to discharge political duties when 
these conditions have been fulfilled. He believes that 
where the rule of the majority prevails an upright man 



THE SOCKATIC ETHICS. 89 

can do nothing but return to private life. In place of 
equality, or an aristocracy of birth and wealth, he 
would substitute an aristocracy of intelligence, like Plato 
in the Eepublic. 

These ideas brought him into collision with the 
Athenian democracy. While insisting on obedience to 
the laws, he at the same time tests their validity by an 
inner standard set up by himself, the individual con- 
science. This contradiction is not peculiar to Socrates, 
but is manifested at once if one seeks to make a law 
of the state, or any rule of conduct absolute. Even 
the command, '' Thou shalt not kill,'" is conditioned by 
circumstances. The same consciousness that recognizes 
this as an imperative duty, impels one to battle bravely 
in defense of his country, or to slay his country's enemies. 
The laws of the land must be obeyed, but there are 
times and occasions when disobedience is sublime, and 
lifts the individual to a height of moral grandeur ordin- 
arily unattainable. This was the case with Socrates 
himself, and the Antigone of Sophocles. But the in- 
dividual must not set up his arbitrary will against the 
will of the state, unless he possesses an insight into the 
eternal principles of law and justice and morality, and 
decides according to their dictates instead of following 
his own subjective liking and inclination. 

This relation between the subjective will of the indi- 
vidual and his objective will as embodied in the state, 
is more a matter of conscious reflection to-day, than it 
was in the time of Socrates. It was misunderstood by 
some of his favorite disciples, notably Alcibiades and 
Critias, one of whom became the enemy and betrayer 



90 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of his country^ the other its opponent and tyrant. They 
lived in accordance with a one-sided interpretation of 
the Socratic principle of subjectivity, and cast upon 
their teacher and his doctrines a discreditable reflection 
wholly undeserved. For the aim of Socrates, in the 
self-culture of the individual, was not that of the 
Sophists, to advance private interest and acquire per- 
sonal power and dexterity ; but to attain true knowledge, 
and thereby establish the sovereignty of virtue and the 
well-being of the community. What he sought was 
to reform the state rather than the means by which 
it might be governed. 

It is uncertain whether Socrates went beyond the 
common Greek view of morality, inculcating good 
towards friends, but permitting evil towards enemies. 
In one of the earliest dialogues of Plato, he is made 
to say that wrong-doing cannot be permitted even 
towards one from whom wrong-doing has been suffered. 
Whether this sentiment is Plato's own or that of 
historical Socrates, is undetermined. 

As to the disgrace that was generally attached to 
trade and commercial pursuits by the Greeks, Socrates 
held that any useful activity was honorable, and that 
idleness alone ought to call forth shame. 

Nature, — In his view of nature he refers all physical 
phenomena to man as their highest end. ^^He dwells 
on the Creator rather than the creation, ^^ and shows 
what care has been taken to provide for human needs 
and wants. He argues that a belief in God and provi- 
dence would not be inborn in men of all conditions and 
times if it were not true. The founder of a scientific 



THE SOCRATIC ETHICS. 91 

doctrine of ethics^ he is the founder also of that ideal 
view of nature, which in spite of all abuses and objections 
has proved itself of value in the study of empirical 
phenomena. 

The adaptation of means to ends in the world of 
nature, its reasonable arrangement, led him to the 
conception of the one Supreme Being who sustains 
to it the relation of soul to body. Yet he frequently 
speaks of the gods as many, in accordance with the 
popular faith. He discussed the question of existence 
after death, and considered it highly probable. **^ Hap- 
piness, virtue, knowledge, — this was the Socratic trin- 
ity, ^^ says Dr. Lord, '^'^the three indissolubly connected 
together, and forming the life of the soul, — the only 
precious thing a man has, since it is immortal. ^^ 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OP SOCRATES. 

A SPIRIT like that of Socrates could not fail to 
-^--^ produce a lasting impression on his immediate 
contemporaries and followers^ an impression;, too^ of the 
most varied character^, due in part to the lack of sys- 
tem in his philosophy^ in part to the convictions 
and beliefs peculiar to individuals. Many simply per- 
ceived and were influenced by his logical personality, 
his pure character, and lofty moral maxims. Xeno- 
phon, whose honest integrity and genuine worth win 
our admiration, depicts Socrates in the most glowing 
colors as a man and a moralist, but leaves untouched 
the profounder phases of his thought. A few looked 
deeper; but even they conceived the Socratic theories 
one-sidedly, fastening on those which they understood 
best, and adding others from older systems of philoso- 
phy. One thinker alone, Plato, comprehended his 
master fully, and developed to rich fruition the 
truths explicit and implicit in the doctrines of 
Socrates. 

Four Socratists besides Plato founded schools of 
philosophy : Euclid, Phaedo, Antisthenes and Aristip- 
pus. Euclid and Phaedo are closely related, and con- 
fine themselves chiefly to questions concerning the 
dialectic of Socrates ; Antisthenes and Aristippus, on 

93 



THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. 93 

the other hand^ neglect everything but the ethical 
side of his teaching, understanding and expounding 
it in different senses, diverging widely not only from 
Socrates, but from each other. 

Socrates defined the object of man^s striving as a 
knowledge of the Good, but he left it for each to 
determine in what the Good consists and how it is 
to be pursued. Different theories and different modes 
of interpretation naturally followed from a principle 
so abstract. The mission of Socrates was simply to 
bring men to true wisdom, and to prove that it be- 
gins with knowledge of self, including but not in- 
cluded by the knowledge of the world. From this 
time henceforth philosophy no longer asks, What is 
nature ? — but. What is truth ? Man becomes conscious 
not only of a contradiction between himself and the 
outer world, but of a contradiction in his own in- 
terior being, in thought itself. This was the service 
of Socrates, and it was impossible for one man to do 
more than to thus prepare the ground for the munif- 
icent harvest afterward reaped by Plato and Aristotle. 

THE MEGARIAN SCHOOL. 

The Megarian school is named from its founder, 
Euclid of Megara. He must not be confounded with 
the Alexandrian mathematician who lived a century 
later. It is related that when the Athenians and 
Megarians were at war with each other, he used to 
steal into Athens at night disguised as a woman, 
risking his life to hear and converse with Socrates. 
He was noted both for his obstinacy and calmness in 
disputing. Once when an adversary cried out in wrath: 



94 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

^^ I will die if I do not avenge myself upon you '^ ; 
Euclid replied^ ^^I will die if I do not so soften 
your anger by the mildness of my speech that you 
will love me instead/^ Euclid was present at the 
death of Socrates^ but after that event returned to 
Megara, accompanied by many of the Socratists^ who 
remained abroad until the tide of opinion turned at 
Athens^ and the accusers of Socrates were themselves 
punished. 

In his philosophy^ Euclid combined the Eleatic 
principle of being with the Socratic ethics, and 
affirmed that the Good is one, though disguised under 
many names, as intelligence, God, thought, etc. The 
Good alone is ; what is opposed to it is not, has no 
real being. The senses are false witnesses ; they show 
us multiplicity, delusive and changing appearances. 
Thought alone is able to grasp the immutable esse]ice 
of things. 

The Megarian school was kept up for a time after 
the death of Euclid, but exercised little influence on 
the course of philosophy. Eubulides, one of its best 
known leaders, and a disciple of Euclid, was noted 
for his sophisms. The Greeks were fond of finding 
the contradictions that underlie our ordinary speech 
and representations. Each sentence is a unit, but at 
the same time consists of a subject and predicate 
differing from each other ; being and non-being are 
contained in language and in thought. But the com- 
mon consciousness is confused by an arbitrary separa- 
tion between the positive and negative elements of a 
sentence, not perceiving that truth is only to be found 



THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. 95 

in the unity of opposites. ^^If any one confesses 
that he lies^ does he lie^ or tell the truth ? '^ Here 
is a dilemma like that of Sancho Panza^ who in his 
character of ruler and judge had to decide the fol- 
lowing case : A rich man had erected a bridge for 
the benefit of travelers^ and near by a gallows^ grant- 
ing a free passage to any one on condition that he 
would say truly whither he was going and agree to 
be hanged if he spoke falsely. One came finally^ who 
in response to the question whither he was going 
answered^ to be hanged on the gallows near the bridge. 
The owner was in great perplexity. If the man were 
hung he would have spoken the truth ; if he were 
not hung, he would have spoken falsely. Sancho 
directed that the milder interpretation be placed on 
the case, and that the man should be permitted to 
cross the bridge. The Megarians delighted in similar 
puzzles, but did not solve them as satisfactorily as 
Sancho. Carried to a higher point of acuteness and 
subtlety by the Sceptics, they finally led to absolute 
negation of all knowledge and reality. 

Stilpo was a member of the Megarian school, but 
united with its doctrines other tendencies belonging to 
the Cynics. Diogenes Laertius says that he so far 
surpassed all others in acuteness of speech that the 
whole of Greece contemplating him was in danger of 
becoming Megarians. His character was held in the 
highest veneration. When Megara was taken and 
plundered he was questioned as to his loss, and replied 
that he had seen no one carrying away science. A 
condition of apathy was his highest moral ideal. He 



96 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

thought that the wise man should be sufBcient to 
himself, not even needing friends in order to be 
happy. When made acquainted with the vicious life 
led by his daughter, he replied that if he could not 
bring her to honor neither could she bring him to 
dishonor. 

Phaedo, a favorite disciple of Socrates, founded a 
school in Elis, resembling the Megarian in its charac- 
ter and tendency. He is the person represented by 
Plato, the narrator of the last conversation of Socrates. 

THE cy:n^ics. 

According to Zeller, the Cynical school was like the 
Megarian, a blending of Socratic ' philosophy with 
Eleatic and Sophistic doctrines, the two uniting in 
Stilpo, and going over into Stoicism with Zeno, who 
was one of Stilpo^s disciples. Antisthenes, the founder 
of Cynicism, was in early life a disciple of Gorgias, 
and himself gave instruction in the art of rhetoric 
and the doctrines of the Sophists. Later, he became 
attached to Socrates, and was one of his most en- 
thusiastic adherents. He taught in a gymnasium 
called Cynosarges, and appears to have been a man 
of high moral character, though Plato and Aristotle 
speak of his culture as superficial. 

He recognized virtue as the supreme aim of life, 
and thought all knowledge useless that did not serve 
ethical aims. Virtue needs nothing except the strength 
of character of Socrates; it can do without theories 
and principles. The good is beautiful, the bad is 
ugly. The wise man is sufficient to himself ; he pos- 
sesses everything which others only seem to possess, 



THE PAKTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. 97 

His own virtue makes him happy; he is at home 
everywhere in the world. Happiness is the final aim, 
but happiness and virtue are one. There is no good 
except virtue;, no evil except vice. He alone is happy 
who is independent of externals, who desires nothing 
outside of that which is absolutely within his con- 
trol. He must be lifted above poverty and riches, 
honor and shame, life and death, must fear nobody 
and care for nothing. He must be indifferent to all 
that concerns the public life of society and the pri- 
vate life of home; his feelings must be deadened to 
insensibility ; he must renounce enjoyment itself, and 
find supreme self-satisfaction in virtue only. 

The freedom of the Cynics is abstract and negative. 
True freedom consists in the control of one^s needs 
and desires, not in their complete denial. Nor is it 
the highest morality to withdraw from human duties 
and relations, from participation in the life and in- 
terests of our fellow-men. 

One may admire the force of will with which the 
Cynics pursued their aim, though it led to spiritual 
vanity and pride, rather than to Socratic elevation of 
character. They regarded themselves as physicians, 
able to heal the moral sickness of men, most of 
whom were fools enslaved by their desires. They 
occupied a peculiar position in the Greek world, and 
have been called the Capuchins of antiquity. In spite 
of their strangeness and extravagance, their influence 
was in part beneficial. They are said to have worn a 
distinctive dress, ragged and dirty, which did not escape 
the criticism of Socrates^ to whom Antisthenes displayed 



98 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the holes in his garment. ''^Ah/^ said Socrates^ 
^^ through the hole itself I see your vanity. ^^ 

Diogenes^ of Sinope^ was a disciple of Antisthenes, 
whose theories he exaggerated to the point of absurdity. 
^^To have no needs/^ said Diogenes^ ^^ is divine; to have 
as few as possible comes nearest the divine. ^^ He threw 
away his cup as useless when he saw a boy drinking 
out of the palm of his hand. He once entered the 
dwelling of Plato^ and walked around with dirty feet 
upon a beautiful carpet^ saying, ^^Thus I trample on 
the pride of Plato. '^ '''Yes, but with a pride as great/' 
replied Plato calmly. 

The requirements of Cynicism were too severe to at- 
tract many disciples. It was incapable of scientific 
development. Its practical activity was of a negative 
kind, demanding renunciation and the separation of 
the individual from society. Man was to rely simply on 
his single self isolated from all other human selves, 
thus opening the way to vanity and pride and arbitrari- 
ness. '^ Cynicism thus touched its diametrical opposite — 
Hedonism/' says Zeller. 

THE CYRENAIC SCHOOL. 

Aristippus of Cyrene, the founder of the Cyrenaic 
or Hedonic school, was a disciple of Socrates, though 
he is represented by Aristotle as a Sophist. He appears 
to have been a man of considerable culture when he 
first met Socrates. Brought up in the midst of wealth 
and luxury, his pleasure-loving habits contrasted 
strangely with the simplicity of his master. Of all the 
Socratists he was the first to require pay for his instruc- 
tions, and himself sent money to Socrates, which wa§ 
promptly returned. 



THE PARTIAL DISCIPLES OF SOCRATES. 99 

Aristippus agrees with Antisthenes that happiness is 
the aim of philosophy^ but he understands by happiness 
pleasure, the enjoyment of the moment. Only the 
present is ours^ we must cease to concern ourselves 
with the past and the future; w^e can no longer possess 
the one and may never possess the other. Pleasure is a 
sensation of gentle motion ; pain^ of violent motion ; 
the mean between the two is indifference. Pleasure 
is alone worthy of desire ; quiet is mere insensibility 
like that of sleep. But insight is needed that we 
may choose and discriminate between our various 
appetites and desires ; pleasure is sometimes bought at 
the expense of great pain. 

The Cyrenaics, like the Epicureans^ are forced to 
consider the results of actions, and soon discover that 
there are pleasures of the mind that outweigh in value 
those of the body. Mere satisfaction of the sensuous 
desires will not produce happiness ; insight must be 
added^ and the right mental disposition. Life offers 
the most to him who renounces no enjoyment^ but 
remains at every instant master of himself. 

Aristippus led a life of self -enjoyment, preserving 
his serenity under all circumstances. He knew how 
to use men and things for his own advantage, and 
made it his principle to free himself as far as possi- 
ble from all sources of annoyance and trouble. He 
repels us by his superficial morality, and at the same 
time attracts us by his rare equanimity and modera- 
tion, which were purely Socratic. 

His principle is one that contradicts itself. He 
declares that to be happy man must surrender him- 



100 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

self with the full freedom of consciousness to the en- 
joyment of the present moment. But that freedom 
can only be attained by an elevation above immediate 
conditions and feelings. He bids us take no thought 
of the past or the future^ and yet recommends in- 
sight and a consideration of the results of actions. 
Though he believes that pleasure is fixed by nature 
as mane's ultimate aim, he sees that the aim is defeated 
unless it is controlled by prudential motives. 

It is said that his grandson, Aristippus the younger, 
first systematized the doctrine of Hedonism. Other 
leaders of the school were Hegesias^ Theodorus^ and 
Anniceris. 

Hedonism, Epicureanism, Eudsemonism and Utili- 
tarianism, agree in considering man chiefly on the 
side of his sensations, as a being susceptible of pleas- 
ure and pain, whose proper pursuit is happiness. Op- 
posite schools of morality, like the Cynics and Stoics, 
regard man almost exclusively on the side of his 
thoughts, as a being endowed with reason, self-con- 
sciousness, whose proper pursuit is virtue, the perfecting 
of his higher nature. The two ends usually harmonize^ 
but when they conflict the question arises : Must we 
strive after the right or the useful, the just or the ex- 
pedient ? It is certain that Socrates answered the ques- 
tion in favor of right and justice, whatever Euda3mon- 
istic interpretation may be placed on his theories. He 
was so many-sided that he was the source of fruitful 
impulses in widely different directions, while at the 
same time his thought was so imperfectly systematized 
as to be easily misunderstood and misapplied. 



THE PAKTIAL DISCIPLES OE SOCRATES. 101 

There is much in the doctrine of the Megarians, of 
the Cynics, and of the Cjrenaics, that is Sophistic 
rather than Socratic. But it is nevertheless clear that 
the three schools proceeded from Socrates as their 
starting point, and were necessary in order to bring to 
light all the consequences of the Socratic principles. 
Their scientific achievements were slight, but they were 
not without influence on the thought of Plato and 
Aristotle, and on the later course of philosophy. 

Cynicism anticipated Stoicism ; Cyrenaicism antici- 
pated Epicureanism. But Plato is the complete Socrat- 
ist, comprehending and working out the thought of his 
master, developing its rich content, and adding to it 
his own invaluable contributions. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Plato's life a:n^d weitikgs. 

f I iHEEE is no ancient philosopher with whose life we 
-^ are more intimately acquainted than with that of 
Plato^ yet even in his case authorities vary. He was 
born in the year 429 b.c.^ at the beginning of the Pelo- 
ponnesian war^ the year in which Pericles died. His 
father, Ariston, was a descendant of Godrus, the last 
hero-king of Attica; his mother, Perictione, was a 
descendant of Solon. His mother's uncle was the 
famous Kritias, the most talented and the most danger- 
ous of the thirty tyrants of Athens. 

Born of this illustrious race and favored by wealth, 
Plato must have found in his surroundings abundant 
means for the highest culture attainable in Athens. He 
received instruction from the most famous Sophists, and 
one of his teachers gave him the name that he has made 
illustrious — Plato ; he was called by his family Aristokles. 
Some ascribe the name to the breadth of his forehead, 
others to the breadth of his mind and the wealth of his 
discourse. In his youth he cultivated poetry and wrote 
tragedies, dithyrambs and songs. In an epigram on 
Aster, one of his best friends, is a thought that reminds 
one of Eomeo and Juliet : 

" To the stars thou look'st, my Aster, » 
O, would that I were the heavens, 
So that I could see thee with so many eyes ! " 

102 



Plato's life a^^d waitings. 103 

In his twentieth year Plato made the acquaintance of 
Socrates^ and during the long and confidential inter- 
course that followed;, penetrated so deeply into the spirit 
of his master as to create for us his living portrait set 
in a frame of ideal beauty. The night before they met 
Socrates dreamed that a swan, the bird of Apollo, flew 
towards him with a melodious song, nestled in his breast, 
and then soared upward to heaven. Plato appreciated 
the debt he owed to Socrates and regarded it as the 
highest favor of fortune that he should have been born 
in his lifetime. His imaginative nature needed the log- 
ical discipline to v/hich Socrates subjected his disciples, 
and it was, doubtless, this training that converted the 
poet into the philosopher. But the poet in Plato was 
never wholly lost ; truth for him was ever one with 
beauty. It is probable that, at this time or earlier, Plato 
studied the systems of other philosophers. Aristotle says 
that he had been initiated into the Heraclitic doctrines 
by Cratylus before he .met Socrates. 

The tragic fate of his master must have been a heavy 
blow to Plato, and could not but deepen his reverence for 
the character and the principles that met even the ordeal 
of death unmoved. If, before this time, he had been 
reluctant to enter political life it is not strange that after 
the condemnation of Socrates he should renounce it 
entirely. The Athenian state appeared to him hope- 
lessly inefficient, and it is well for humanity that he did 
not sacrifice himself in its ruin, but fled for refuge and 
strength to a higher, supersensuous world, — the world of 
Ideas. 

After the execution of Socrates, Plato left Athens, 



104 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and took up his abode for a time at Megara^ with his 
friend Euclid^, the founder of the Megarian School of 
philosophy. He afterwards traveled to Kyrene^ Egypt^ 
Magna Graecia and Sicily. It is impossible to ascertain 
with certainty how long he remained in Megara^ or 
whether he returned to Athens and taught philosophy^ 
before completing what Schwegler terms his ''Wa7ider- 
jalire.^' He gained from his travels a closer acquaintance 
with the Pythagorean school of philosophy^ and a deeper 
knowledge of mathematics, which he studied under the 
guidance of the most celebrated mathematicians of the 
time. Zeller and other authorities regard as legendary 
the stories that are told of his stay in Egypt, and of the 
priestly lore and mysteries into which he was there 
initiated. 

In Sicily, Plato visited the court of Dionysius the 
elder, whose youthful brother-in-law, Dion, embraced 
his doctrines. But the philosopher's plain speaking 
did not please Dionysius. Offended at his declara- 
tion that happiness is not dependent on external 
circumstances, he sent the philosopher to be sold in the 
slave-market of ^gina. The accounts of the affair vary, 
but Plato is said to have been ransomed by Anniceris, 
a Cyrenian. Dion and other friends, as the story goes, 
wished to repay the price of the ransom, but Anniceris 
refused the money for himself, and applied it to the 
purchase of the garden in the Academy. Here Plato 
gathered a chosen circle of disciples whom he instructed 
in philosophy. Among his auditors were two women. 
The Academy was a grove in the suburbs of Athens, used 
as a gymnasium, and named in honor of the hero 



PLATO'S LIFE AND WRITINGS. 105 

Acadenms, whose fame is entirely eclipsed by that of 
Plato. 

Concerning the manner of his instruction we know 
little except what may be inferred from the form of his 
writings^ and the decided way in which he condemns 
the long speeches of the rhetoricians^ who know neither 
how to ask nor to answer questions. His discourses were 
doubtless conversational in character^ although according 
to Aristotle he seems also to have delivered connected 
lectures, where the nature of the exposition rendered it 
necessary. 

On the death of the elder Dionysius^ Plato again 
visited Sicily^ influenced by his friendship for Dion and 
the hope that he might effect a reform in the Sicilian 
constitution by winning over to his political views the 
heir of the throne, the younger Dionysius. Dionysius 
received Plato politely ; but the philosopher's expectations 
were disappointed, for the young man had '' one of those 
mediocre natures who in a half-hearted way strive for 
fame and distinction, but are capable of no depth and 
no earnestness.'' A quarrel breaking out between Dio- 
nysius and Dion which led to the banishment of the 
latter, Plato returned to Athens. 

Some years afterward, moved by the solicitations of 
Dionysius and the entreaties of his friends, he made a 
third voyage to Sicily, hoping to effect a reconciliation 
between Dionysius and Dion. He not only failed in the 
attempt, but was so mistrusted by the tyrant that his life 
was endangered, and was saved only at the intercession of 
the Pythagoreans, then at the head of the Tarentine 
state. 



106 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

It is said that Plato refused offers from various Greek 
states to become their lawgiver. It was a time when 
they did not prosper with their constitutions. But 
constitutions to be effective must be the outgrowth of 
historical conditions rather than the creation of indi- 
viduals. 

Honored everywhere^ especially in Athens^ Plato died 
on his birthday^ in his 81st year^ at a marriage feast. 
He was buried in the Ceramicus^ not far from the 
Academy. 

Plato lived at a time when Greece had reached her 
highest point of splendor, and was steadily declining in 
national greatness. His own nature and the influence 
of the time led him to philosophy rather than politics. 
His personality was more aristocratic than that of Soc- 
rates. Endowed with artistic tastes and the Greek love 
of beauty, he was not free from wants and desires, nor 
indifferent to the externals of life. But he always prac- 
ticed the simplicity and moderation which he inculcated 
in his philosophy. He was exclusive in his friendships 
and did not seek to share his thoughts with all ; he loved 
rather to shut out the world with its disturbing clamor. 
The aristocracy of intelligence, advocated in his ideal 
State, is deeply rooted in his own character. He united 
lofty moral principles with a rare susceptibility for 
beauty, grandeur of intellect with tenderness of feeling, 
enthusiasm with serenity, developing himself on all 
sides harmoniously, in accordance with the Greek ideal 
of human perfection. 

^' Plato^s relation to the world is that of a superior 
spirit,^' says Goethe, ^^ whose good pleasure it is to dwell 



Plato's life aj^d writings. 107 

in it for a time. It is not so much his concern to become 
acquainted with it — for the world and its nature are 
things which he presupposes — as to kindly communicate 
to it that which he brings with him^ and of which it 
stands in great need. He penetrates into its depths, 
more that he may replenish them from the fullness of 
his own nature, than that he may fathom their mysteries. 
He scales its heights as one yearning after renewed 
participation in the source of his being. All that he 
utters has reference to something eternally complete, 
good, true, beautiful, whose furtherance he strives to 
promote in every bosom.''' 

Like Pythagoras, he has been compared to Apollo, 
who in the bright clearness of his spirit was to the 
Greeks the very type of moral beauty, perfection and 
harmony. 

His literary activity extended over the greater part 
of his life, and it is thought that none of his writ- 
ings intended for publicity have been lost. Doubts 
have been thrown upon the genuineness of some of 
the minor Dialogues, but the authenticity of the 
greater ones is placed beyond dispute by the testimony 
of Aristotle. It is impossible to determine with cer- 
tainty the dates of the several writings, a point that 
might help us towards comprehending the historical 
development of Plato's system of philosophy. 

Schleiermacher classified the Dialogues according to 
an internal principle of connection, believing that 
Plato so planned his inquiries as to produce upon 
the reader's mind a certain effect, which would be 
presupposed in the succeeding investigation, He dig- 



108 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

tinguished three divisions united in one organic whole; 
the elementary^ the indirectly inquiring, and the ex- 
pository or constructive dialogues. 

Hermann agrees with Schleiermacher as to the 
unity of the writings, but finds its cause in the growth 
of Plato^s mind rather than in any conscious design. 
He also arranges the Dialogues in three classes. The 
first is the Socratic elementary class, written before 
or immediately after the death of Socrates, dramatic 
in style and full of specious arguments, but pene- 
trating no deeper than Socrates into the fundamental 
problems of thought. The second is the dialectic or 
mediatory class, written under the influence of the 
Megaro-Eleatic philosophy, distinguished by more search- 
ing criticism and less beauty of form. The third is 
the expository or constructive class, uniting the artis- 
tic fullness of the first with the philosophic profundity 
of the second, enriched by all the elements of an 
enlarged experience, and fused together into one per- 
fect creation. 

Hegel ascribes little importance to these inquiries, 
believing that it is only ignorance of philosophy that 
renders the apprehension of Plato^s thought difficult. 
His system exhibits a totality of the Idea, in which 
the one-sided abstractions of earlier philosophers taken 
up into his deeper principle attain concrete unity 
and truth. For the concrete, according to Hegel, is 
the unity of different principles, each one of which 
must be set up as the sole truth in order to be de- 
yeloped and clearly conceived. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CHAKACTER OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. 

PLATO'S view concerning philosophy rests on a 
Socratic basis^ but he goes far beyond his mas- 
ter in working out and perfecting his system of 
thought. With Plato as with Socrates^ right action 
and right thinking are one ; philosophy is inseparably 
connected with morality and religion. But it was 
Plato who first deyeloped into a systematic whole the 
ethical concepts of Socrates, and found not only their 
basis but a guide for the explanation of the natural 
universe in dialectic, or the pure science of Ideas. 
That there is a difference as well as a connection be- 
tween knowledge and action, was not wholly unobserved 
by Plato, although it was Aristotle who first clearly 
analyzed both, and distinguished beneath all apparent 
contradictions an essential identity in the activity of 
thought itself. 

Plato, like Aristotle, entered upon physical investi- 
gations, which had been entirely neglected by Soc- 
rates. But Plato's achievements in this field are slight ; 
to him the contemplation of pure ideas was far more 
important than the study of empirical data in the 
world of sense. For he regarded material things as 
types of eternal ideas, a world of shadows to be left 
behind if we would gain spiritual insight, He gladly 

109 



110 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

turned from the transient appearance to its underly- 
ing reality, from the infinite in its finite manifesta- 
tions to its revelation in pure thought. 

Plato was the first Greek philosopher who studied 
the doctrines of his predecessors, and consciously united 
in a higher principle the truth of their contradictory 
statements. ''^The Socratic philosophy of concepts was 
transplanted by him into the fruitful and well-tilled 
soil of the previous natural philosophy/^ says Zeller, 
^^ thence to appropriate to itself all kindred matter ; and 
in thus permeating the older speculation with the 
spirit of Socrates, purifying and refining it by dialectic, 
which was itself extended to metaphysical speculation ; 
in thus perfecting ethics by natural philosophy and 
natural philosophy by ethics, Plato has accomplished 
one of the greatest intellectual creations ever known. ^^ 
He has proclaimed with energy and enthusiasm the 
deepest principle of all speculation, the idealism of 
thought, and given an impulse to the progress of philo- 
sophy, transcending far the bounds of his own system. 

The form of the Platonic exposition, as is well 
known, is unique, and required an artistic nature for 
its construction. It is that of the philosophic dialogue, 
which retains the reciprocal kindling of thought pecu- 
liar to verbal intercourse, guided by a scientific pur- 
pose rather than contingent motives. Everything is 
simple and plastic. We are taken to the halls of the 
Gymnasia, or to the Academy, or to a banquet, or to 
the clear waters of the Ilyssus, where Socrates and 
other cultivated men are conversing. Each concedes 
to the other a perfect right to hold and to utter per- 



CHARACTER OF PLATO^S PHILOSOPHY. Ill 

sonal sentiments and opinions, which is the secret of 
that delightful Greek urbanity whose charm we all ac- 
knowledge. Socrates is the chief speaker and his per- 
sonality, idealized by Plato, is the bond of artistic 
unity between the dialogues. Plato realized that he 
owed the beautiful fruit of his thought to the seed 
that Socrates so generously scattered, and his writings 
are one grateful acknowledgment to the revered and 
beloved master. 

It is not difficult to distinguish in the dialogue 
what belongs to Plato and what belongs to Socrates ; 
for philosophy is one, and later systems of thought can 
only develop the truth implicitly contained in the 
earlier. Plato^s creative genius is shown by the man- 
ner in which he uses his intellectual material, original 
and inherited, forming it into a plastic whole as beautiful 
and complete as a work of Phidias. Thought to him 
is a conversation of the soul with itself, and the form 
of the dialogue is essentially connected with his idea of 
philosophy. He had a deep conviction of the advan- 
tages of speech as compared with writing, and sought 
by his peculiar method to compel the reader to an ac- 
tive participation in philosophic inquiries. He first 
arouses interest in the different opinions expressed by 
various speakers, and then, after a rigid analysis and 
investigation which exhibits their incompleteness, leaves 
the reader to discover for himself the central point of 
unity in the argument. The unfolding of the dialogue 
is in fact the development of a philosophic theme. 
The speakers not only give their opinions, but fill the 
parts prescribed, for them by the author. Many of the 



112 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

questions of Socrates are so framed that a simple yes 
or no^ is all the answer required; but^ with few ex- 
ceptions^ the art is so perfect as to preserve the life 
and spirit of a real conversation. 

Philosophy to Plato was not a mere doctrine^ but a 
living power which he sought to communicate to others 
through actual personal communion, or the written 
speech that resembled it most nearly. The philosophic 
dialogue is as much his creation and peculiarity as the 
system of thought it embodies, and could never have 
reached equal perfection earlier or later. Philosophy 
demanded a sharper discrimination between the aesthetic 
impulse and scientific cognition, and renounced the 
plastic beauty of Plato^s style, for a more systematic 
exposition of its principles in the works of Aristotle. 

The employment of myths is another peculiarity 
of Plato^s philosophy. The myth is an exposition by 
means of sensuous pictures addressed to imagination 
and feeling rather than to the pure thinking activity. 
It is a poetic presentment of that which the author 
believes to be true, but cannot prove scientifically. 
Like all symbolic representation, it is necessarily ob- 
scure and ambiguous. To interpret it strictly would 
be the task, and not a very enviable one, of some 
person who had plenty of time on his hands, says 
Plato in the Phaedo. Too much or too little is fre- 
quently found in it ; its hidden meaning is either 
extended to utterly foreign subjects or lost sight of 
entirely. It was the poet in Plato that clothed the 
myth in such mystic radiance, but its use was a neces- 
sity to the philosopher. He could not otherwise fill 



CHAKACTEE OF PLATO'S PHILOSOPHY. 113 

up the gaps in scientific knowledge that existed in 
his day^ or express those higher realities of religion 
and faith which transcend human experience. 

But^ from a scientific point of view^ Plato^s use of 
the myth is a sign of weakness rather than of strength. 
The idea clothed in a sensuous form is neither fully 
comprehended nor expressed. Plato^ like a creative art- 
ist, thinks in pictures and sees the truth intuitively; 
but this is poetry rather than philosophy. Philosophy 
must confine itself strictly to the domain of the pure 
intellect, and leave to poetry that of the imagination. 

Plato himself, in distinguishing between the dif- 
ferent grades of knowing, placed the truth in that 
alone which is produced through thought. In oppo- 
sition to the view of ordinary consciousness and that 
of the Sophists, he teaches that knowledge is neither 
perception nor correct opinion, but the activity of the 
soul itself in the sphere of ideas. If perception were 
knowledge, that would be true for each man which 
appears to him true ; if correct opinion were knowl- 
edge, there would be no possibility of false opinion, 
for we can only know or not know. Opinion is in- 
termediate between knowledge and ignorance, and is 
uncertain and variable because it lacks insight into 
the necessity of truth. 

Passing from the theoretical to the practical, Plato 
teaches that the virtue which is guided by opinion 
is dependent on chance, and circumstances, and the 
subjective will of the individual. But virtue in its 
essence is immutable, and is based upon knowledge. 
Against the view of the Sophists, who consider pleas- 



114 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ure the highest good, Plato argues that the good can 
only be the just, that it is better to suffer wrong 
than to do it, to be punished for evil than to re- 
main unpunished. ^^The philosopher only has true 
happiness/^ he says, ^^for his pleasure alone consists 
in being filled with something real ; that is the sole 
pleasure which is unalloyed and bound to no condi- 
tioning pain. The question whether justice is more 
profitable than injustice is as absurd as would be the 
inquiry, ^ Is it better to be sick or well ? ^ '^ 

Philosophy, according to Plato, is derived from 
practical necessity, and springs from inspiration or 
enthusiasm, the philosophic Eros, This enthusiasm 
assumes the form of love on account of the special 
brightness which distinguishes the visible copies of the 
beautiful. The soul, through love, seeks to fill itself 
with what is eternal and imperishable. Love is the 
striving of mortal nature after immortality. It does 
not at first reveal its true nature, but rises gradually 
from the love of beautiful forms to the love of beau- 
tiful souls, and finally to the love of that which is 
its true goal — the Divine Idea, or Beauty in Eternal 
Existence. Love, as conceived by Plato, is the philo- 
sophic impulse which seeks, through speculative knowl- 
edge and the practice of virtue, to expand the finite 
to infinity. 

When we ask how love is to obtain its highest 
object of endeavor, Plato unexpectedly supplements 
love by logic, and adds to the philosophic impulse a 
severe training in the dialectic method. ^^Enthusi- 
asm is the first irregular production of ideas, ^^ says 



CHARACTER OF PLATO's PHILOSOPHY. 115 

Hegel^ "^^but it is scientific thought that brings them 
into a rationally developed shape and into the day- 
light/^ Plato declares that dialectic is the true fire 
of Prometheus, the instrument by means of which 
the pure idea is developed. It is a recognition of 
the essence of things, of the One in the Many, and 
the Many in the One. It proves that the only real- 
ity is spirit, and that thought is the truth of the 
sensuous world. 

Through the union of love and logic, of the dia- 
lectic impulse and the philosophic method, Plato de- 
velops his philosophy. The highest object of thought 
is the Idea of the Good, and the chief problem of 
education is to incline the soul towards this Idea. 
In a brilliant allegory Plato represents men as dwell- 
ing underground, in a cave, with a long entrance 
open towards the light. At a distance above and 
behind them a fire is blazing, but they are fastened 
in such a maimer that they cannot turn their heads, 
and can only see the shadows cast by those who pass 
along a raised way between them and the fire. They 
look upon these shadows as realities ; and if one is 
freed and dragged toward the fire, or upward into 
the full blaze of the sun, he is filled with pain and 
terror, and blinded by excess of light. But he will 
come at last to recognize the truth, and will see that 
what he now beholds is the substance of the shadow. 
Should he descend again into the darkness of the^ 
cave, he will not see as well as his companions, and 
will be mocked as one who went on a visit to the 
sun and lost his eyes. But the way into the light 



116 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

is the way to knowledge^ and those who attain to 
the beatific vision of the Idea of the Good are always 
going upward. The soul must be turned away from 
the transient occurrences surrounding it until it is 
able to contemplate true existence. This is the mean- 
ing of education ; it is a knowing from within, and 
not from without. He alone is capable of philo- 
sophic cognition who has learned to renounce the 
sensuous, and to direct his vision towards true Being. 

Philosophy, to Plato, is the royal science that all 
others must serve, the realization and perfection of 
human nature, the absolute consummation of the spir- 
itual life. ^^The knowledge of the most excellent 
things begins through the eyes,^^ he says in the Tim- 
aeus. ^^ The distinction of the visible day from the 
night, the lunations and revolutions of the planets, 
have produced the knowledge of time and given rise 
to the investigation of the nature of the whole. 
Whence we have gained philosophy ; and a greater 
good than it, given by God to man, has neither 
come nor will ever come.^^ 

Plato recognizes that God alone is wise, and does 
not claim for man divinity, but only its likeness. 
He acknowledges that it is difficult for the human 
soul amid its earthly surroundings to attain the pure 
intuition of truth, but sees in self-activity the means 
of development. He would even base the organism 

of the state on philosophy. ^^ Until philosophers rule 

• 

in the state, or the now so-called kings and men in 
power philosophize truly and perfectly, and thus the 
ruling power and philosophy coincide — until the dif- 



CHAEACTEK OF PLATO's PHILOSOPHY. 117 

ferent dispositions are united which now are isolated, 
and engaged in these provinces separately for them- 
selves, pursuing the one or the other ; until then, 
oh friend Glaucon, there will be no end of evil for 
the people, nor, think I, for the human race in gen- 
eral/^ Plato^s thought, so far as it means that uni- 
versal principles should direct and control the state, 
is true, and is generally acknowledged to-day as the 
substantial basis of government. 

^^ Plato has indicated every eminent point in spec- 
ulation,^^ says Emerson. ^^He wrote on the scale of 
the mind itself, so that all things have symmetry in 
his tablet. He put in all the past without weari- 
ness, and descended into detail with a courage like 
that he witnessed in nature. One would say that 
his forerunners had mapped out each a farm, or a 
district, or an island, in intellectual geography, and 
that Plato first drew the sphere. He domesticates 
the soul in nature ; man is the microcosm. All the 
circles of the visible heaven represent as many cir- 
cles in the rational soul. There is no lawless par- 
ticle, and there is nothing casual in the action of the 
human mind. * * ♦ * Before all men he saw 
the intellectual values of the moral sentiment. He 
describes his own ideal when he paints in the Tim- 
8eus a god leading things out of disorder into order. 
He kindled a fire so truly in the centre that we see 
the sphere illuminated, and can distinguish poles, equa- 
tor, and lines of latitude, every arc and every node ; 
a theory so arranged, so modulated that you would say 
the winds of ages had swept through this rhythmic 



118 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

structure^ and not that it was the brief extempore 
blotting of one short-lived scribe. 'J* * * jjjg ^^]^^ 
tlety commended him to men of thought. The se- 
cret of his popular success is the moral aim^ which 
endeared him to mankind. Intellect^ he said, is king 
of heaven and earth ; but in Plato, intellect is always 
moral. ^^ 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 

THE division of philosophy into dialectic^ physics, 
and ethics^ is that which is generally adopted in 
the exposition of the Platonic system. This classifi- 
cation cannot be distinctly ascribed to Plato himself, 
but is one presupposed by Aristotle, and employed by 
Platen's disciple, Xenocrates. 

Dialectic, in the higher sense of the word, is the 
science of true Being, the inquiry into Ideas. The 
Idea for Plato is the true Universal, the essence of 
things, that which abides uniform and self-identical 
amid all finite changes and contradictions. It is ap- 
prehended, not by the senses, but by reason alone. 
All that the senses perceive is constantly changing, 
becoming ; no single thing exists truly, for it depends 
on another, and is self-contradictory ; the true is not 
the sensible, but the intelligible world. ^^ There are 
two sorts of things, ^^ says the Timseus, '^^one that 
always is and becomes not, and one that always be- 
comes and never is. The former, that, namely, which 
is always in the same state, is apprehended through 
reflection by means of reason ; the other, again, which 
comes to be and ceases to be, but properly never is, 
is apprehended through opinion by means of sensuous 
perception and without reason. ^^ One is the arche- 

119 



130 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

typal Idea ; the the other is its imperfect copy. We 
are led to the first when we look for the ultimate 
end of the second ; that which is fair and good in 
the finite world can only become so through partici- 
pation in Infinite Beauty and Goodness. Everything 
points to the idea as the cause of its existence ; the 
Ideal is the only Real. This particular rose^ with its 
bloom and fragrance^ is a transitory image of the uni- 
versal rose that never fades. 

Hegel distinguishes between the higher form of dia- 
lectic employed by Plato, and that which he used in 
common with Socrates and the Sophists. In some of 
the dialogues;, dialectic is apparently an art of over- 
turning the common notions of men by showing what 
contradictions they contain and how inadequate they 
are as scientific knowledge. Its purpose is to direct 
men to search for what is instead of what appears; but 
its result is negative and destructive. That Plato ap- 
preciated the danger involved in this use of dialectic is 
evident from the advice given in the Republic, that 
citizens should not be initiated into the art before 
they had completed their thirtieth year. But there is 
a positive side even to this form of dialectic. It 
classifies under one general Adew the notions analyzed, 
and thus brings to consciousness the Universal. Plato 
seems a little tedious to modern thought in this pro- 
cedure because the abstractions at which he arrives 
are part of our intellectual inheritance. 

^^ The dialectic as speculative is the Platonic dia- 
lectic proper/^ says Hegel; ^^it does not end with 
a negative result, but presents the union of antithetic 



THE PLATOKIC DIALECTIC. 121 

sides which have annulled each other. What Plato 
seeks in the dialectic is the pure thought of the rea- 
son, from which he very carefully discriminates the 
understanding. One can have thought concerning 
many things, if he has thought at all ; but Plato 
does not mean this sort of thoughts. The true spec- 
ulative greatness of Plato, that through which he 
makes an epoch in the history of philosophy, and 
consequently in the world-history in general, is the 
more definite comprehension of the Idea ; an insight 
which some centuries later constitutes the funda- 
mental element in the formation of the world-his- 
tory and in the new organic form of the human 
spirit. '' 

Plato^s dialectic starts from that of Socrates, but 
he unites in his thought all the principles of the 
earlier philosophers, dissolving their contradictions by 
means of that higher insight into truth contained in 
his theory of Ideas. He derives from Heraclitus the 
doctrine that sensuous things are perpetually chang- 
ing ; to the Eleatics he owes the conception of abso- 
lute Being; from Socrates he learns to seek the uni- 
versal in the determination of concepts, and comes 
to the conclusion, as Aristotle says, that ^^this pro- 
cedure must refer to something different from sense, 
for sensible things, being always liable to change, 
cannot be universally defined. ^^ That which exists 
absolutely, and is alone the object of knowledge, he 
calls Ideas. The sensuous manifold that we perceive 
is what it is by virtue of participation in Ideas. The 
visible is but an adumbration of the invisible ; sense 



123 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

reflects imperfectly the reality of thought. Ideas are 
the eternal prototypes of Being ; from them all other 
things are copied. They belong to the spiritual and 
not to the material world ; they are accessible to the 
contemplation of reason alone^ and can neither be 
seen nor apprehended by sense and understanding. 

In the Symposium^ Plato defines the Idea of the 
Beautiful, and shows how one may be guided from 
the love of its imperfect copies in the world of 
sense, on and on, with increasing apprehension of 
the truth until, at last, purified of earthly leaven, 
he sees what the essence of Beauty is, and beholds 
its divine Idea, the Infinite Cause of all that is fair 
and lovely in earth or heaven. ^^But what if man 
had eyes to see the true beauty — the divine beauty, 
I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged 
with the pollutions of mortality, and all the colors 
and vanities of human life — thither looking, and 
holding converse with the true beauty, divine and 
simple, and bringing into being and educating true 
creations of virtue and not idols only? Do you not 
see that in that communion only, beholding beauty 
with the eye sf the mind, he will be enabled to 
bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities ; for 
he has hold not of an image but of a reality, and 
bringing forth and educating true virtue to become 
the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man 
may ? '' 

Ideas are present in the mind of every individ- 
ual, but few are aware of their existence, or know 
anything of their nature and character. The special 



THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 123 

function of dialectic is to make us conscious of their 
presence^ and to purify our thinking by directing it 
towards the true aim of human activity^ the spirit- 
ual rather than the material. Education is not only 
useful information^ but an illumination and purifica- 
tion of the soul. In the seventh Book of the Ee- 
public^ Plato explains the nature of dialectic and the 
training that is necessary to draw the soul upwards. 
Arithmetic and geography prepare the mind for true 
science by teaching it how to deal with abstractions 
apart from sensible objects. Yet mathematics is but 
a dream and a hypothesis^ never analyzing its own 
principles in order to attain true knowledge. Dia- 
lectic^ and dialectic alone^ is the only science which 
does away with hypotheses in order to establish them^ 
and teaches the eye of the soul, buried in the slough 
of ignorance, to look upwards, using as handmaids 
the other sciences. Dialectic may be further defined 
as the science which explains the essence of each 
thing, which distinguishes and abstracts the concep- 
tion of the Good, and is ready to disprove all ob- 
jections, not by appeals to opinion, but to true ex- 
istence. This is the knowledge without which man 
apprehends only shadows, and dreaming and slum- 
bering in this life reaches its end before he is well 
awake. 

To become conscious that one cannot think a 
sensation without passing beyond it to the idea that 
lies at its basis, is a discovery that summons the hu- 
man intellect to put forth its utmost capacities. To 
think is to pass from the singular and particular to 



124 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the idea or the universal. Before me lie a rose and 
a lily^ and I apprehend that each is like and 
unlike the other. But whence comes this appre- 
hension? Can resemblance or difference be seen^ or 
touched^ or perceived by any of the senses? Are 
they not universal relations which can only be appre- 
hended by the intellect? Are they not laws of 
thought without which intelligence could not operate? 
Can we think at all except under the conditions of 
resemblance and difference^ of genus and species? 
Can we know anything of a world that is not con- 
structed in conformity with these ideas? Are not 
the laws of thought objective as well as subjective^ 
universal^ necessary ? 

Absolute and universal truths according to Plato^ 
must address itself to all intellect^ and he therefore 
argues that ideas are the truest realities because they 
are the principles without which there could be neither 
intelligence nor the object of intelligence. The world 
of thought is the actual world itself ; it alone exists 
truly and is capable of being known. It does not 
lie outside of reality^ it is not beyond in heaven or 
elsewhere^ it is here and now^ eternal and divine in 
its nature. To become conscious of its presence we 
have only to develop our inner capacities^ to see with 
the eye of the mind. ^'^ Ideas are to be reached only 
in and through scientific cognition^ ^^ says Hegel^ 
''^they are immediate intuitions only in so far as they 
consist of the simple results which scientific cognition 
arrives at by its processes. ^^ 

Science^ the knowledge of that which is in truths 



THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 125 

is therefore distinguished from opinion. Plato^ in the 
EepubliC;, says that opinion is the middle ground 
between ignorance and knowledge^ and that its con- 
tent is a mingling of Being and Nought. The 
subject matter of opinion is the world of sensuous 
objects^, the individual thought which at the same 
time is and is not^ since it only participates in ideas 
and reflects them imperfectly. Can we say of any 
finite thing that it is absolutely large or small^ light 
or heavy? It is not merely one of these opposites 
but the other^ as^ for instance^ in the Phaedo, Sim- 
mias is large in comparison with Socrates^, small in 
comparison with Phaedo. But the idea of largeness 
remains what it is permanently^ and is never at the 
same time identical with smallness. Only the idea 
can be known; for of thought which is constantly 
changing^ we may have opinion but not knowledge. 
Opinion refers to the material^, knowledge to the im- 
material. To assume that the two are identical is 
to become a materialist ; to distinguish between them 
is to acknowledge the existence of Ideas^ unchangea- 
ble and imperishable. 

The nature of knowledge^ as opposed to perception, 
is considered at length in the Theastetus. The definition 
that ^^ Knowledge is sensible perception/^ is first ana- 
lyzed. This is soon identified with the saying of 
Protogoras that ^'Man is the measure of all things. ^^ 
^^ Things are to me as they appear to me and to you 
as they appear to you.^^ Suppose the same wind blowing 
in our faces ; it is hot or cold, according to your feeling, 
or to mine. Feeling, perception, appearance, are identi- 



126 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

cal with being and knowledge. But if truth is only sen- 
sation and one man^s discernment is as good as another^ 
and every man is his own judge^ and everything that 
he judges is right and true^ why should we go for instruct- 
ion to Protagoras^ or know less than he^ or refuse to 
believe the contradictory proposition, that every man 
is not the measure of all things ? What need of discus- 
sion, or debate, or scientific inquiry, if subjective feeling 
is the criterion of knowledge ? Would not Prota- 
goras have to contradict himself and admit the truth of 
what his opponents advance, if every man perceives and 
feels correctly ? How could there be any difference 
in the judgments of men about the future ? Yet we 
admit practically that only the wise man knows what 
is expedient for the future. The farmer is a better 
judge of the prospective harvest than the man who 
knows nothing of farming; Protagoras himself is a 
better judge of the probable effect of a speech than 
an indifferent person. Finally, if the objects of sen- 
sation are constantly moving and changing, as Protagoras 
asserts, how is it possible to fix them even for an instant ? 
Is not perception itself annihilated ? What can be pre- 
dicted of that which is in a perpetual flux ? 

It has been objected that Plato is not wholly fair to 
Protagoras and interprets him one-sidedly. But the 
truth remains, that knowledge is not sensible perception, 
or in Plato^s words, ^''Knowledge does not consist in im- 
pressions of sense, but in reasoning about them ; in that 
only, and not in the mere impression, truth and being can 
be attained.^' ^^We cannot apprehend either through 
hearing or through sight that which they have in 



THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 127 

common. To compare one sensation with another im- 
plies a principle which is above sensation. To com- 
bine perceptions in the unity of self-consciousness 
is a purely intellectual act. Through what organ of the 
body would one perceive mathematical and other abstrac- 
tions^ unity and multiplicity, sameness and difference, 
likeness and unlikeness, and the most universal of all, 
being ? We know a thing to be hard or soft by the touch, 
but the essential being of hardness or softness, their op- 
position to one another and the nature of the opposition, 
is slowly learned by reflection and experience. 

Knowledge, then, is not perception, and must be 
sought elsewhere. Is it correct opinion ? The Greek 
word for opinion (f^ojo)^ like the German Meinung and 
Vorstellu7ig, is difficult to translate. It is used in various 
senses by Plato, and is explained by one commentator as 
crude conception, feeling, instinctive conviction. But 
these terms do not exhaust its meaning, as is evident 
from the following passage : '' The soul when thinking 
appears to me to be just talking — asking questions of 
herself, and answering them, affirming and denying. 
And when she has arrived at a decision, either gradually 
or by a sudden impulse, and has at last agreed, and 
does not doubt, this is called her opinion/^ Plato 
proves that opinion is not knowledge, and the dialogue 
ends without reaching the definition sought. The 
light thrown on the subject, though indirect, is none 
the less valuable. 

The work begun in the Theaetetus is continued 
in the Sophist, where Plato investigates the ideas of 
movement and rest, of Being and JSTon-Being. The 



128 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Sophist is an imaginary representative of false opinion. 
But falsehood is that which is not^ and therefore has 
no existence. If we admit that falsehood exists, we 
presuppose the conception of Non-Being; '''for only 
that opinion can be named false which asserts the non- 
existence of things which are, and the existence of 
things which are not.''^ The same difficulty occurs 
if we define the Sophist as the imitator of appear- 
ance and not of reality. How can he imitate that 
which is not ? The argument again asserts the exist- 
ence of Non-Being, which is positively denied by 
Parmenides and the Eleatics. 

Parmenides affirms that all things are one, that we 
cannot perceive the many because the many are not, 
that plurality and change, space and time, are merely 
illusions of the senses. Plato, on the other hand, 
seeks to establish the reality of Non-Being, explain- 
ing it as the other of Being, both of which belong 
to all things. Non-Being is negation, and is essen- 
tial to any distinction. It becomes, as it were, posi- 
tive in relation to that to which it is opposed. The 
not large is as real as the large, darkness is as real 
as light, cold as heat. In relation to itself light is, 
in relation to darkness, is not ; to know what it is 
we must know what it is not; negation is as neces- 
sary as affirmation. True being contains difference as 
well as identity, being for others as well as for self. 
The being of the Eleatics is altogether exclusive ; the 
being of Plato is altogether inclusive. 

In opposition to the Eleatics, the Sophists hold 
fast to Non-Being, which is the standpoint of sensa- 



THE PLATOKIC DIALECTIC. 129 

tion^ or the many. This view leads to materialism, 
to the belief of those who, according to Plato, '"^are 
dragging down all things from heaven and from the 
unseen to earth, and seem determined to grasp in 
their hands rocks and oaks ; of these they lay hold 
and are obstinate in maintaining that the things only 
which can be touched or handled have being or es- 
sence, because they define being and body as one, 
and if any one says that what is not a body exists 
they altogether despise him and will hear of nothing 
but body."*^ Plato represents their opponents as cau- 
tiously defending themselves from above out of an un- 
seen world, mightily contending that true essence con- 
sists of certain intelligible and incorporeal ideas ; the 
bodies which the materialists maintain to be the very 
truth they break up into little bits by arguments and 
affirm them to be generation and not essence. These 
'' Friends of Ideas,"'' as Plato terms them, assert that 
neither motion, nor life, nor soul, nor mind, are pres- 
ent with absolute Being, that to it belongs neither 
activity nor passivity. 

Against this doctrine of ^^ an everlasting fixture in 
awful unmeaningness,'" Plato argues forcibly that the 
Divine Keason could exist nowhere, nor in any one, 
if it were unmoved, and had neither life, nor soul, nor 
thought. If we are to participate in Being, we must 
act upon it or be acted upon by it ; if we are to know 
Being, a capacity of being known must correspond to 
our faculty of knowledge. It is as difficult to conceive 
Being as N"on-Being if the two are held in utter isola- 
tion, Non- Being is the principle of the other which 



130 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

runs through all things. In spite of Parmenides who 
says, ^^ Non-Being never is and do thou keep thy 
thoughts from this way of inquiry/^ Plato proves that 
^^ there is a communion of classes, and that being, and 
difference, or other, traverse all things, and mutually 
interpenetrate, so that the other partakes of being 
and is by reason of this participation, and yet is not 
that of which it partakes, but other, and being 
other than being, is clearly and manifestly not-be- 
ing. And again, being, though partaking of the other, 
becomes a class other than the remaining classes, and 
being other than all of them, is not each one of 
them and is not all the rest, so that there are thou- 
sands and thousands of cases in which being is not 
as well as is, and all other things, whether regarded 
individually or collectively, in many respects are, 
and in many respects are not.^^ 

The concept of motion, for instance, excludes that 
of rest, but both participate in being. Each is identi- 
cal with itself, but the other of the other. So far 
as concepts are alike, the being denoted by one be- 
longs to the other ; so far as they are different, the 
contrary is the case, and the being of one is the 
non-being of the other. The concept man, for in- 
stance, includes all those concepts which distinguish 
man as an animal, and those also which separate him 
from other animals, but it excludes an infinite num- 
ber of concepts which are other and different from 
man. Thus in every being there is also a non-being, 
the difference. He is the master of dialectic who 
sees clearly the reciprocal relation of concepts, and 



THE PLATOJS'iC DIALECTIC. 131 

knows what classes have and have not communion 
with one another. But he who is always bringing 
forward oppositions in argument is but a little way 
in the investigation of truth. The attempt at uni- 
versal separation is the annihilation of reason, for 
thought consists in the uniting of ideas. 

The identity of Being and Non-Being constitutes, 
according to Hegel, the true point of interest in 
Platonic philosophy. ^'^As for the imagination/^ he 
says, ^^it is well enough to arouse it and animate it 
with representations of the Beautiful and the Good ; 
but the thinking cognition asks after a definite state- 
ment regarding the nature of the Eternal and Divine. 
And the nature of this Eternal and Divine is, es- 
sentially, free determination alone, and the being de- 
termined does not in any way interfere with its 
universality ; a limitation (for every determination is 
limitation) which nevertheless leaves the Universal in 
its infinitude free by itself. Freedom exists only in 
the return-into itself, the undistinguished is lifeless ; 
the active, living, concrete universal is, therefore, that 
which distinguishes itself within itself, but remains 
free in the process. This determination consists only 
in this; that the one is self -identical in its Other, in 
the Many, in the Different. ^^ 

The Parmenides, through a more abstract and 
elaborate dialectic, attains the same result as the 
Sophist. Parmenides is the chief speaker, and his 
conclusion that the one is not thinkable without the 
many, nor the many without the one, is opposed to 
the Eleatic doctrine. But Plato may have regarded 



132 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

his theory of ideas as a development of the Eleatic 
conception of being, and a conciliation of its contra- 
dictory elements. Parmenides certainly assails Plato^s 
theory in the first part of his discourse, anticipating 
in the most wonderful way the criticism of after ages. 
Plato here touches on the deepest problem of philoso- 
phy, the connection between the Ideas in us and the 
Absolute Idea, between the human and the Divine. 

Concerning the unity of the one and the many, 
Socrates says; ^'I should be surprised to hear that 
the genera and the species had opposite qualities in 
themselves ; but if a person wanted to prove to me 
that I was many and one, there would be no mar- 
vel in that. When he wanted to show that I was 
many he would say that I have a right and a left 
side, and an upper and a lower half, for I cannot 
deny that I partake of multitude ; when, on the other 
hand, he wants to prove that I am one, he will say 
that we who are here assembled are seven, and that 
I am one and partake of the one, and in saying 
both he speaks truly. * • • If, however, as I was 
suggesting Just now, we have to make an abstrac- 
tion, I mean of like, unlike, one, many, rest, motion, 
and similar ideas and then to show that these in 
their abstract form admit of admixture and separation, 
I should greatly wonder at that.^^ 

Parmenides admires the noble ardor with which 
the youthful Socrates pursues philosophy, not holding 
fast to the sensuous, but to concepts which are seized 
by thought alone. But he recommends Socrates to 
practice dialectic, and to consider not only what fol- 



THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 133 

lows from assuming a determination^ but what follows 
from assuming its opposite. This leads to the second 
and most important part of the dialogue, the dialecti- 
cal treatment of the one and the many by Parme- 
nides himself. It is first proved that the one that can- 
not be many is not even one, that it is ^^ neither 
named nor uttered, nor conceived, nor known,^^ and 
that the reality of the many apart from the one is 
also unthinkable. The hypothesis that the one is not 
is equally impossible to thought, and the conclusion 
is reached that ^^ whether one is or is not, one and 
the other in relation to themselves or one another, 
all of them, in every way, are and are not, and 
appear and appear not."^ 

^^The One is the Totality — All that is — Being and 
Non-Being — One and Many,^^ to quote the words of 
Mr. S. H. Emery, in his exposition of the Parme- 
nides, published in the Journal of Speculative Philoso- 
phy. '^ The negative series of propositions contains the 
first negation of a negation,^^ says Prof. Jowett. ^^Two 
minus signs in arithmetic or algebra make a plus. 
Two negations destroy each other. This subtle notion 
is the foundation of the Hegelian logic. The mind 
must not only admit that determination is negation, 
but must get through negation into affirmation. 

• That Plato and the most subtle philosopher of 
the nineteenth century should have lighted upon the 
same notion is a singular coincidence of ancient and 
modern thought.''^ 

True Being must be defined as a unity which in- 
cludes in itself multiplicity. All things draw their 



134 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

existence from the one and the many^ and contain 
the finite and the infinite as a part of their nature. 
The phenomenal world derives its reality from that 
which shines through it — Ideas. Plato does not deny^ 
but explains actual existence. The plurality of the 
phenomenon is sustained and comprehended by the 
unity of the idea. 

In the Philebus, Plato distinguishes four determi- 
nations of existence ; the infinite^ or unlimited^ the 
limited, the union of the two^ and the cause of the 
union. To the cause he ascribes reason and wisdom ; 
it is the Divine Providence everywhere adapting 
means to ends ; the Absolute comprehending in itself 
the finite and the infinite. ^^The distinction of the 
absolute and -relative forms the logical ground-work 
of Plato^s whole system/^ says Zeller; "^^for the idea 
exists in and for itself ; the phenomenon^ and to the 
fullest extent^ matter^ only in relation to something 
else.^^ 

In bridging the chasm between thought and sense, 
between ideas and phenomena, Plato is not always 
consistent with himself. At one time he describes 
the outward world as if it were mere subjective ap- 
pearance ; at another, he demands that the meanest 
material existence shall not be left without an idea. 
He struggles against this dualism, but does not over- 
come it wholly. That the essence of things is the 
same as the divine essence, is implied in his specu- 
lations, although in the Timaeus, as Hegel says, ^''the 
two appear distinct from each other — God, And the 
essence of things.^'' 



THE PLATONIC DIALECTIC. 135 

Plato also expressed the union of the one and the 
many by describing the ideas as numbers. That ideas 
are nothing but numbers is a view ascribed to Plato 
by Aristotle^ but not found in the dialogues and 
therefore unsubstantiated. 

The Platonic Ideas are so related as to form a 
graduated series and organism, combining, excluding, 
or participating in one another in all conceivable 
ways. The lower presuppose the higher, and the high- 
est of all, without presupposition, is the Idea of the 
Good, which gives to everything whatever worth it 
possesses. As the sun in the visible world enlightens 
the eye and reveals things seen, everywhere causing 
growth and increase, so in the invisible world the 
Good is the source of truth and knowledge. It is 
represented as the goal of human activity, that which 
all men pursue under different names, the ultimate 
end of the world, the source of reality and reason. 
It is higher than the idea of Being ; everything that 
is and is knowable has received from God its exist- 
ence and its ability to be known. Plato clearly as- 
serts in the Philebus that the Divine Keason is none 
other than the Good, and identifies it in the Timseus 
with the Creator and world-builder. He seems never 
to have separated in his thought God as a person 
from the Idea of the Good. 

Plato identifies religion with philosophy ; God in 
an absolute sense is not distinct from the highest of 
the Ideas. He recognizes the gods of the popular 
religion, but places above them One who is all-wise 
and all-powerful, creating the world because He is 



136 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

good and ruling it by the supremacy of His reason. 
From His goodness he deduces His unchangeableness ; 
for that which is perfect can neither be changed by 
another nor alter in itself. God is wanting in nothing 
that is fair and excellent ; He is able to do whatever 
can be done at all ; His wisdom is seen in the per- 
fect adaptation of means to ends ; He is absolute 
goodness and justice. To worship God is to seek to 
be like Him^ to create in ourselves His image. 
Philosophy is not mere abstract speculation^ it is 
love and life^ the filling of the soul with the true 
and the infinite. 

Dialectic^ the development of the method by which 
the truth is ascertained^ is inseparably united with 
moral culture. Plato teaches us to open the inward 
eye and see that which is in reality, turning away 
the thought and inclination from the sensible to the 
intelligible. The discipline of dialectic is moral as 
well as intellectual ; the highest insight which it 
enables us to attain is the object of religion as well 
as of philosophy — the Idea of God as Absolute Good- 
ness. 



CHAPTER XXL 

THE PLATONIC PHYSICS. 

PLATO^S discussions concerning the world of phe- 
nomena^ the Cosmos and man^ are included un- 
der the name of Physics. But he tells us that in 
this field of investigation we must be content to 
take probability for our guide^ and not look for 
the same accuracy of treatment as in dialectic. His 
themes are set forth in the Timaeus^ the most diffi- 
cult and obscure of his dialogues, and the one most 
strongly colored with Pythagoreanism. 

Nature, the world of phenomena, is that which 
is always becoming and never is ; it is apprehended 
not by reason and reflection, but by opinion with 
the help of sense. As visible and tangible it must 
have been created ; and that which is created must 
have a cause. This cause is the Father of all who 
looked to an eternal archetype, for the world is the 
fairest of creations, and God is the best of causes. 
He created the world because He was good, and de- 
sired that all things should be as like Himself as 
possible. He brought order out of disorder, and re- 
flecting that of visible things the intelligent is su- 
perior to the unintelligent. He put intelligence in 
soul, and soul in body, and framed the universe to 
be the best and fairest work in the order of nature. 

137 



138 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Thus^ through the providence of God^, the world 
became a living soul and truly rational. He created 
it before the body^ compounding out of the un- 
changeable and indivisible essence and also out of 
the divisible and corporeal a third nature interme- 
diate between them which partook of the same and 
the other. The whole was divided lengthwise, and 
the two halves were bent into an outer and an in- 
ner circle ; the outer is the circle of the same, or 
the sphere of fixed stars ; the inner is the circle of 
the other, which forms the seven spheres of the 
planets. In the circular revolution of these spheres 
the soul turning on itself moves, and at the same 
time moves the corporeal, interfused everywhere from 
the centre of the universe to the circumference. Its 
form, that of a sphere, is the most perfect and 
uniform of shapes, comprehending all others ; and 
its motion is circular because, as return into itself, 
it is most appropriate to mind and intelligence. It 
is divided according to the cardinal numbers of the 
harmonic and astronomical systems, for numbers are 
the mean between mere sensuous existence and the 
pure idea, and the soul of the world must compre- 
hend in itself all proportion and measure. The 
mythical element is at once apparent in this descrip- 
tion. The immaterial is confused with the material ; 
imagination seeks to picture that which cannot be 
pictured, but which can only be thought by the 
pure reason. 

Plato believed the Cosmos to be a living creature 
with a soul. All that is moved by another must be 



THE PLATOi^IC PHYSICS. 139 

preceded by the self-moved ; the corporeal is moved 
by another, the soul is self-moved. If we regard 
the universe, it is impossible to doubt that it is 
ruled by intelligence, and where, except in the soul, 
can this intelligence dwell ? The soul is therefore 
prior to the body, both in man and in the Cosmos. 
And as the body of the Cosmos is more glorious 
and mighty than ours, its soul transcends our soul 
in perfection. The soul of the world is the inter- 
mediate principle between the Idea and the phenom- 
enon, participating in the Divine Reason and im- 
parting it to the corporeal. It is not only the cause 
of material motion, but it is also the source of 
spiritual life and knowledge. Never growing old nor 
passing away, it is the perfect copy of the ever- 
lasting and invisible God, itself a blessed god exalt- 
ed above all other created deities. *^^Even Plato is 
too deeply penetrated with the glory of nature to 
despise her as the non-divine,^" says Zeller, ^^or to 
rank her as the unspiritual, below human self-con- 
sciousness."" 

Hegel finds a profound meaning underlying Plato"s 
doctrine of the world-soul. The nature of the Ab- 
solute Idea is shown in forming out of the undi- 
vided and the divided a mixture, partaking of the 
nature of the self-identical and of the other, and 
uniting all into one whole which is '' the true mat- 
ter, the absolute stuff (material) which is sundered 
in itself, as an abiding and indissoluble unity of one 
and many. Plato finds the soul to be the all-in- 
cluding simple in the idea of the corporeal universe; 



140 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

to him the essence of the corporeal and of the soul 
is that of the Unity in the Difference. This two- 
fold Essence^ posited in and for itself in the Differ- 
ence, systematizes itself within the One into many 
moments^ which^ however^ are movements ; so this 
reality and the mentioned essence are, taken together^ 
the whole in the antithesis of soul and body, and 
the antithetic sides are again one. Spirit is the all- 
penetrating to which the corporeal is opposed, though 
the former (spirit) is, in fact, this extension itself.''^ 

The archetype of the world-soul exists alone in 
thought, in eternal self -identity ; but entering into 
antithesis a copy arises and becomes visible. The 
archetype is the life eternal ; the copy is the system 
of sidereal motion, a self-moving image of the eter- 
nal. Moved according to number it is what we call 
time. The true time is eternal, or the present. 
Every thought exists in time ; like space, it is sen- 
suous and not sensuous, the form in which spirit 
becomes objective. Opposite to true time, or the 
eternal present, the form of the self-identical, is that 
of the self-changing, the phenomenal world of mat- 
ter. Space is its ideal essence, as time is the abso- 
lute principle of the immediate image of the 
Eternal. 

That Plato believed matter to be eternal, indepen- 
dent, existing as chaos before the creation of the 
world, might be inferred from certain passages of the 
Timseus. But to interpret literally what was only 
meant figuratively would contradict other statements 
of a deeper philosophic import^ and would place be- 



THE PLATOHIC PHYSICS. 141 

side the Idea of the Good another entity^ equally 
permanent and self-identical. Plato seems rather to 
conceive matter as the unlimited^, the condition of 
separation and division^ the objective which has the 
power of receiving the idea and reflecting it in the 
phenomenon. It is the ground of change and of ex- 
tension^ and must be different from the Idea^ because 
it is that in which its copy exists. 

Plato enters into details concerning the derivation of 
the four elements^ and classifies animated beings accord- 
ingly into those of fire or light, of air, of water, and of 
earth. He describes the earth as at rest in the centre 
of the universe, and conceives the stars as immortal 
deities. His discussions concerning organic nature and 
the structure of the human body remind us that science 
was yet in its infancy. He distinguishes between two 
causes, the divine and the necessary. The divine ap- 
pertains to the eternal, the necessary to the finite and 
mortal. God himself is the author of the first ; but 
the second He commits to His assistants for the produc- 
tion and regulation of mortal things; "^"^an easy mode 
of transition from the divine to the finite/^ says 
Hegel. 

Plato^s theory of the human soul is the completion 
of his physics. Conceived apart from its union with 
the body, the essence of the human soul is the same as 
that of the world-soul. Reason cannot impart itself to 
man except through its instrumentality ; participating 
in the idea of life it can never participate in the op- 
posite idea, that of death. It is self-moved and the 
source of motion in all other things ; it is indestruct- 



142 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ible^ without end or beginning, free from change and 
multiplicity. Its connection with matter is expressed 
mythically as a lapse to a lower condition. The soul is 
represented under the figure of two winged steeds and 
a charioteer. The white horse is the symbol of its 
higher aspirations, the black horse is the symbol of 
appetite and impulse, the charioteer is the reason. If 
perfect and fully winged it soars upward and regulates 
the world, if imperfect it droops and receives an 
earthly form, which appears to be self-moved, but is 
really moved by the soul. The immortal, according to 
HegeFs interpretation of Plato^s thought, is that whose 
soul and body are indivisibly in one, the identity of 
the real and the ideal, of the finite and the infinite. 

^^Now the chariots of the gods, self-balanced, upward 
glide in obedience to the rein; but the others have a 
difficulty, for the steed who has evil in him, if he has 
not been properly trained by the charioteer, gravitates 
and inclines and sinks towards the earth ; and this is 
the hour of agony and extremest conflict in the soul. 
For the immortal souls, when they are at the end of 
their course, go out and stand upon the back of hea- 
ven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them 
round and they behold the world beyond. * * * 
The colorless and formless and intangible essence is 
visible to the mind, which is the only lord of the 
soul. * * During the revolution she beholds jus- 
tice, temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the 
form of generation or of relation, which men call ex- 
istence, but knowledge absolute in existence absolute. 
This is the life of the gods. But other souls, trying 



THE plato:n^ic physics. 143 

to reach the same heights^ fail, and fall upon the 
earth, occupying a higher or lower station as they have 
more or less truth. But memories of the glories of 
heaven remain as reminiscence^ and the soul by con- 
tinuous effort and aspiration may again soar upward 
to regain its lost inheritance.^^ 

The allegorical character of this description must not 
be forgotten. That Plato believed in the pre-existence 
of the soul, and that its life on earth is a lapse from a 
perfect condition, is generally assumed, but rests princi- 
pally on mythical statements. The soul that looks upon 
true being is the pure thinking activity itself, the 
divinity within man ; the soul that falls to earth takes 
appearance for reality, opinion for knowledge. Plato 
affirms that the soul must be freed from the dominion 
of the senses before it can behold that which truly 
exists, that to which change and death are foreign. 
Through its union with a mortal body, it is subject to 
sensuous needs and greeds, but in its essence it is divine. 
Accordingly, he distinguishes within it the mortal and 
irrational from the immortal and rational. The irra- 
tional is again divided into two parts ; the first, the 
white horse of the myth, is courage, or will ; the second 
is mere sensuous appetite and desire. Eeason, or 
thought, has its dwelling in the head ; courage, in the 
breast ; desire, in the lower regions. Courage is nobler 
than appetite, but acts frequently without reflection, 
and belongs to the physiological, natural side of man. 
A curious theory accounts for the way in which desire 
is ruled. Eeason mirrors pleasant or terrible pictures 
on the smooth surface of the liver, and by means of 



144 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

imagination alarms or quiets the lower appetites. The 
liver is the organ of presentiments and of prophetic 
dreams, which are ascribed to the irrational side of the 
soul. 

Plato constantly teaches that corporeal existence is 
not true life^ and that the soul proclaims its divine 
origin in its conflict with the body^ its love for beauty^ 
its longing for knowledge^ its aspiration towards the 
good. To educate the soul is to bring to consciousness 
what it is in itself. Plato asserts that what we seem to 
learn is nothing but reminiscence^ that learning is a 
process of recalling that which we possess already. 
'^ The soul^ as being immortal^ and having been born 
again many times^, and having seen all things that there 
are^ whether in this world or in the world below^ has 
knowledge of them all ; and it is no wonder that she 
should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever 
knew about virtue and about everything ; for as all 
nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things, there 
is no difficulty in her eliciting, or as men say, learning 
all out of a single recollection, if a man is strenuous and 
does not faint ; for all inquiry and all learning is but a 
recollection.^^ 

Hegel thinks that Plato conceives the true nature of 
consciousness in the doctrine of reminiscence. Spirit 
includes both subjective and objective, the thinking sub- 
ject and the object thought. But the two appear sun- 
dered at first as the inner and th^ outer, and must be 
identified in thought to produce knowledge and science. 
Images of individual transitory things come from with- 
out and are the subject of opinion ; but universal 



THE PLATONIC PHYSICS. 145 

thoughts, which alone are true, have their birth in the 
soul and belong to its essence. We convert what is 
sensuously perceived into something internal and uni- 
versal through the act by which we go into ourselves 
and recall it in the depths of consciousness. There 
dwells in each man as an immanent faculty of his soul, 
the organ with which he learns ; and the art of in- 
struction is that of turning the soul away from tran- 
sient sensations and images towards the contemplation 
of the true and the good. But so far as Plato represents 
all knowledge as possessed by the individual conscious- 
ness in a previous state of existence, it belongs to his 
figurative way of imagining, by means of the myth, re- 
lations of pure thought. The individual consciousness, 
not as a mere exclusive individual, but as inclusive, 
universal and divine in its essence, has in itself poten- 
tially the content of knowing, which can be developed 
only through its own activity. 

Plato^s doctrine of the immortality of the soul is 
based on its essential nature, which excludes the possi- 
bility of its destruction. The soul is the principle of 
motion, and is inseparably combined with the idea of 
life. The composite alone is subject to dissolution and 
decay ; but the soul in its essence is simple, self -iden- 
tical, incapable of any change. Its substance is that 
which remains ever the same even when involved with 
external material which seems foreign to itself. I 
represent by myself one sensuous image after, another, 
but their changes do not affect my thinking activity, 
which remains in permanent self-identity, recognizing 
all the images as my production. 



146 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Platens belief in retribution after death is closely- 
connected with his doctrine of immortality. As it is 
impossible to determine the precise way in which 
souls are punished^ he represented it mythically as 
transmigration, a theory borrowed from the Pythagor- 
eans. The soul which has yielded to appetite and 
sensuous desire must enter lower forms of existence ; 
the soul which, through conflict and aspiration, has 
risen above the corporeal, attains a state of blissful 
repose. *^^The process of the world, the history of 
the universe, has no other import than this perpet- 
ual transition of Psyche between the higher and the 
lower, the divine and the human world, ^^ says Schweg- 
ler. At once spiritual and unspiritual, free and un- 
free, the two contradictory elements of the soul are 
manifested as a succession in time. Man is the union 
of sense and reason ; the soul, therefore, is inclined 
both to the sensuous and the ideal. The solution of 
this enigma can only be found in its ethical nature 
and destiny, which is the central point of the Pla- 
tonic philosophy. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE PLATONIC! ETHICS. 

TO SOCEATES Plato owed, in part, the purity and 
fervor of his strivings, his conviction of the ne- 
cessity of moral knowledge. His lofty idealism lifted 
ethics to a height, transcended only by Christianity. 
He sought first to ascertain and establish the ulti- 
mate aim of moral activity, or the supreme good ; he 
treated next of its realization in individuals, or virtue ; 
and finally of that toward which all morality tends, 
the objective actualization of the good in the state. 

The good is what all men desire ; to possess it is 
happiness : in what does it consist ? Not in this 
changing and perishable sensuous existence, but in 
the life of thought, pure contemplation, the endeavor 
of the soul to become like God. ''''Evils, Theodo- 
rus, can never perish, ^^ says Plato, in the Theae- 
tetus, ^''for there mast always remain something which 
is antagonistic to good. Of necessity they hover 
around this mortal sphere and the earthly nature, 
having no place among the gods in heaven. Where- 
fore, also, we ought to fly away thither, and to fly 
thither is to become like God, as far as this is pos- 
sible ; and to become like Him is to become holy 
and just and wise.^^ 

In other dialogues, the body appears as a fetter, a 

147 



148 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

dungeon of the soul, the grave of the higher life. 
The task of the soul is to purify and emancipate it- 
self from corporeal influence^ to withdraw from the 
sensuous into the life of thought. The appetites and 
passions, the lower element of the soul, seduce us 
from our true destiny, degrade the human into the 
animal, and are the root of vice and misery. Phi- 
losophy is a means of purification, freeing the soul 
from its sensuous fetters, and lifting it into the world 
of Ideas where it beholds the good and the true, 
regaining the blessedness it had lost through its im- 
mersion in matter. 

But this withdrawal from finite conditions is a 
negative theory of morality, which Plato completed by 
other views, ascribing more importance to the sensible 
world as that which reveals the Idea. He refutes the 
doctrine of pleasure as the highest good, because pleas- 
ure is relative and is quickly transformed into pain. 
It is also changing and indefinite, and cannot be the 
aim of the souFs activity. But a life without pleas- 
ure or pain would be pure apathy. The good does 
not entirely exclude pleasure, but it must be guided 
by reason so as to produce order and measure. The 
chief constituent of the Supreme Good is participa- 
tion in ideal knowledge ; the second, the formation of 
that which is harmonious, beautiful and perfect ; the 
third, mind and wisdom ; the fourth, the special sci- 
ences, the arts and right opinions ; the fifth and last, 
the pure and painless pleasures of the senses. '^^We 
cannot fail to perceive the moderation, the respect 
for all that is in human nature, the harmonious cul- 



THE PLATOKIC ETHICS. 149 

ture of the whole man^ by which the Platonic ethics 
prove themselves such genuine fruits of the Greek 
national mind/^ says Zeller. 

The essential means of happiness is virtue^ the in- 
ternal harmony and health of the soul. If passion 
and appetite rule, the human and divine element in 
our nature is subjected to the animal ; the soul is 
miserable and enslaved. The virtuous man alone is 
free and happy ; his soul takes hold of the Eternal, 
for true philosophy and perfect morality are one. 
Plato transcends the Socratic doctrine of expediency ; 
virtue in itself is its own reward, vice its own pun- 
ishment. Were it possible for the righteous to be 
mistaken by God as well as by man, and for the 
wicked to conceal their wickedness from both, the 
first would still be happy, the second unhappy. Vir- 
tue has unconditional worth, independently of future 
retribution. 

Plato followed Socrates at first, and identified vir- 
tue with knowledge, but was led by reflection to 
modify this view. Although the inclination towards 
virtue is implanted in human nature itself, he recog- 
nized that moral disposition varies according to tem- 
peraments and individuals. Ordinary virtue, founded 
on habit, custom and right opinion, must precede the 
higher morality, he says in the Kepublic. The first 
is presupposed by the second, and the second is per- 
fected by philosophy. He believed, with Socrates, in 
the unity of virtue, but at the same time admitted 
a plurality of moral attributes, assigning them to dif- 
ferent parts of the soul. The virtue of reason is 



150 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

wisdom, the rule of the souFs life ; the virtue of the 
heart is courage, or valor, which helps reason in the 
struggle against outward and inward peril ; the virtue 
of sensuous appetite is self-control, or temperance ; and 
finally, the virtue which unites the others that there 
may be perfect internal harmony, is justice. 

Plato attempted no systematic application of his 
principles to subjective morality. He transcended the 
ordinary Greek view in his belief that the just man 
should do good even to his enemies, and ought never 
to commit suicide, because his life was not his own, 
but a gift from God. 

He was not able to free himself altogether from 
the defects of Greek morality. He exalted woman 
mentally and morally, yet misunderstood wholly the 
ethical import of marriage, regarding it chiefly from 
a physiological point of view. He shared the con- 
tempt of the Greeks for trade and commerce, which 
relate merely to the satisfaction of bodily wants, and 
proceed from the lower appetitive part of the soul. 
He insisted on a just and humane treatment of slaves, 
but did not object to slavery itself. 

^' Justice in large letters,^" morality actualized in 
the life of the state, objective rather than subjective, 
is the fundamental principle of Plato^s ethics. Eter- 
nal right, the Good, is embodied in the constitution of 
society itself, to which individuals must conform, 
even at the cost of self-sacrifice, because they have 
no other way of self-assertion. The idea of political 
justice is inseparable from that of individual justice, 
in Plato^s thought. The principle of the modern 



THE PLATONIC ETHICS. 151 

world, subjective freedom, the right of the individual 
to his own moral conviction, appeared to Plato an 
element of destruction. 

'^The true ideal is not something that merely 
ought to be actual, but that is actual/^ says Hegel. 
^^For that which is actual is reasonable. * • • If 
one would recognize the actuality of substance he 
must look through the surface on which the passions 
contend for mastery. The temporal, the perishable, 
exists, it is true, and it can make needs and wants 
enough for any one ; but nevertheless it is no true 
actuality, no more than is the particularity of the sub- 
ject, his wishes and inclinations. If we consider the 
content of the Platonic Idea, we shall see that Plato 
has portrayed in the Kepublic the Greek ethical cul- 
ture in its most substantial form ; the Greek national 
life is what constitutes the true content of his work. 
Plato is not the man to busy himself with abstract 
theories and principles ; his true spirit has recognized 
and unfolded the true ; and this could be nothing 
else than the true in the world in which he lived, 
this one spirit which was vital in him as well as in 
Greece. No one can transcend his time ; the spirit 
of his time is also his spirit, but he must see to it 
that he does not fail to recognize it according to its 
content. ^^ 

Justice, according to Plato, is the order of the 
State, and the State is the outward embodiment of 
justice under the conditions of human society. The 
ethical is held fast as the divine substance of the 
State; the true State should be a pattern of true 



152 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

virtue. It alone can secure the general victory of 
good over evil. But the only power that can place 
morality on a firm foundation, free it from contin- 
gency, and guarantee its existence and continuance, 
is philosophy. Proceeding from the State to the in- 
dividual, from the political and ethical to the moral 
idea, Plato preserves the true character of Greek 
thought. What he seeks to discover is the principle 
which lies at the foundation of society, connecting it 
with the individual mind, so that the law of the one 
must be the law of the other. 

He divides his citizens into three classes, correspond- 
ing to the three parts of the soul. The highest rank 
is that of the rulers, or learned men, the State guard- 
ians ; the second is that of the warriors who protect 
the State and maintain its laws ; the third and most 
numerous is that of the agriculturists and artisans, who 
provide the necessities of life, laboring for the gratifi- 
cation of sense and appetite. 

The only means of advancement is to excel others 
in knowledge and virtue ; exceptional ability of this 
kind is always rewarded by the State. The ruling 
class who deliberate concerning the general interest ex- 
press the idea of wisdom ; the warriors, that of courage, 
fortitude, steadfastness of spirit, the firm assertion of 
what is just ; the laborers, that of temperance or 
self-control. The qualities of each class interpene- 
trate the rest, and are brought into harmony though 
a deeper principle, that of justice, which determines 
the true relation of all things and persons to each 
other, and itself a virtue is the universal substance 



THE plato:n^ic ethics. 153 

out of which particular virtues arise. To the indi- 
vidual as to the State, justice is so related as to 
give the supremacy to reason, subjecting the lower 
part of the soul to the higher, the principle of 
sense to that of intelligence. 

'' The just man does not permit the several ele- 
ments within him to meddle with one another, but 
he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own 
master, and at peace with himself ; and when he has 
bound together the three principles within him, which 
may be compared to the middle, higher, and lower 
divisions of the scale, and the intermediate intervals, 
when he has bound together all these, and is no 
longer many, but has become one entirely temperate 
and perfectly adjusted nature, then he will begin to 
act if he has to act, whether in a matter of prop- 
erty, or in the treatment of the body, or some af- 
fair of politics or private business; in all which cases 
he will think and call just and good action that 
which preserves and cooperates with this condition, 
and the knowledge which presides over this wisdom ; 
and unjust action that which at any time destroys 
this, and the opinion which presides over unjust action, 
ignorance. ^^ 

The Platonic State is an aristocracy which excludes 
part of its citizens from any direct share in political 
power. As in the soul, the smallest part is to rule, 
so in the State the minority who excel the rest in 
virtue and intelligence, are alone to govern. Their 
power is unbounded and unshared. Nothing is more 
dangerous to a State than to entrust public matters 



154 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

to the incompetent ; neither the artisans nor the 
warriors are to step outside of their respective spheres. 
The only means of advancement is exceptional ability ; 
the mass of the people are not to meddle either 
with weapons or with politics. On the other hand, 
industrial activity is prohibited to the warriors and 
rulers ; they are even forbidden to possess private 
property, but must devote themselves entirely to the 
State, and derive their subsistence from the labor of 
the third class. The State is wise when the rulers 
are wise ; courageous when its warriors are courageous ; 
temperate when the passions of the multitude are 
restrained by reason and the striving toward the good. 
When everyone fulfills his appointed duty, and the 
different classes are united in one organism, justice 
arises. 

The first condition and final aim of the State is the 
virtue of its citizens. In order to secure this Plato 
would regulate their whole manner of life and educa- 
tion. He would even place the parentage of the citi- 
zens under State control. The children belong to the 
State alone ; they are to be separated from their par- 
ents and brought up publicly from the first moment of 
their existence. The magistrates are to determine 
their vocation, placing them in the rank for which 
they seem fitted by natural disposition and character. 
The higher class are to receive instruction in music, 
literature, and gymnastics. But Plato admonishes us 
that even in studying gymnastics we must remember 
that the soul is related to the body as a cause to an 
effect, and that the first should be considered rather 



THE PLATOlSriC ETHICS. 155 

than the second. Under music^ which Plato calls the 
fortress of the State^ he includes poetry and moral 
culture generally^ the development in the soul of that 
sense of order and harmony which will keep a man 
steadfast in the right way before he attains scientific 
knowledge. The mere athlete becomes a savage^, the 
mere musician grows effeminate ; the two must be 
mingled in fair proportions if the soul is to be duly 
attempered. When a beautiful soul harmonizes with 
a beautiful form^ that will be the fairest of sights to 
him who has the eye to contemplate the vision. 

Art is subordinated to ethics in the Platonic state. 
The poets^ Homer and Hesiod^ are banished because their 
representations of God are unworthy. In so far as their 
stories of the gods were accepted by the Greeks as uni- 
versal maxims and divine laws^ Plato is justified^ al- 
though he wholly mistakes the ethical idea which under- 
lies their poetry and constitutes its real substance. True 
art is not fanciful and imitative^ but the expression of 
the highest moral energy^ according to Plato. 

After the preparatory discipline in music and gym- 
nastics^ the highest class are to receive intellectual train- 
ing in dialectic^ which extends far into manhood. 
Education should never finish^ beginning with gymnas- 
tics in youths and ending with philosophy in maturer 
life. Then, when nature begins to decay, the soul re- 
tires into herself and is the ^''spectator of all time and 
all existence. ^^ 

That the citizens may belong wholly to the state, Plato 
lays down a rule of life for the two higher classes. They 
are to have common dwellings and common meals, a 



156 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

community of property^ and of wives and children. They 
can possess neither gold nor silver, but receive a moderate 
maintenance provided by the third class. Women are 
to share the education of men in war and in political 
affairs. Lawyers and physicians will have little to do on 
account of the virtue of the citizens and their healthy 
mode of life. If one cannot be cured quickly and simply, 
it is better to die than to live for the care of a sickly 
body The physician shall have personal experience of 
disease, for he cures with his mind and not with his body. 
The lawyer, on the other hand, controls mind by mind, 
and should have no experience of evil. The ideal judge 
should be advanced in years, should have passed an in- 
nocent youth and acquired experience of evil late in life 
by observation. Virtue can know vice, but vice can 
never know virtue. 

As to the great mass of citizens, the artisans and the 
agriculturists, they are left to themselves ; ^^for it is not 
of much importance where the corruption of society and 
pretension to be what you are not extends only to cob- 
blers ; but when the guardians of the laws and of the 
government are only seemers and not real guardians, that 
is the utter ruin of the state. ^^ Plato probably believed 
that a certain amount of culture would be diffused from 
the higher classes to the lower. With his Greek preju- 
dice against industrial activity, he fails to see the eco- 
nomical importance of the laboring classes, just as he 
ignores their political significance. His government is an 
aristocracy, but an aristocracy based on the possession of 
intelligence and virtue. 

He foresees the ridicule that will be directed against 



THE PLATONIC ETHICS. 157 

his proposition^ that the rulers of a state must be phi- 
losophers. He explains why it is that the study of phi- 
losophy unfits one to be a practical politician. The phi- 
losopher is one whose mind is fixed upon the end and 
meaning of things, their substance and reality. The rest 
of the world are following images and shadows, blindly 
feeling after the good. The philosopher must either 
descend to this pursuit, where he necessarily stumbles 
and deserves contempt, or he must keep his own high 
course, which as unintelligible is despised. But how 
would it be if when he has come out into the light where 
he sees all things as they are, he neither glorifies himself 
by living apart from men, nor confuses his light with 
their darkness, but dwelling in the midst of them seeks 
rather to lead them upward by the same path which he 
has followed ? Philosophy, then, would harmonize with 
politics ; the moving spring of the state would not be 
the self-seeking principle, but the divine Idea leading 
mxcn towards the good. 

The most striking peculiarity of the Platonic re- 
public is the entire subordination of the individual to 
the state, the exclusion of subjective freedom. That 
individual inclination should be ignored in the choice of 
a vocation, is opposed to modern thought. It is not for 
one man to prescribe for another that he shall follow this 
or that vocation, that he shall become a shoemaker, or a 
lawyer, or a soldier. It is his right as a person to decide 
the matter for himself without regard to external circum- 
stances. 

To do away with the principle of private property is 
another violation of subjective freedom. Property is a 



158 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

possession which belongs to me as this particular person, 
and through it I exist as an abstract individual self. 
The laborers, tradesmen and agriculturists of the Platonic 
state produce the necessaries of life for all, and the pro- 
ducer like the rest uses from the common store whatever 
he needs. The objection brought by Aristotle against 
this view is still valid, that it would take from men the 
stimulus to activity. Property, according to Hegel, is 
an object into which I have introduced my will, and by 
this act I have made it mine, so that he who touches it 
touches me, and touches that will which is the substance 
of my personality. " The essential point is that my free- 
will takes the first necessary step toward becoming ob- 
jectively real in the possession of actual objects, ^^ says 
Professor Morris, in his interpretation of HegeFs thought, 
^'^and the essential truth is that just as the free-will can- 
not be conceived as a mere means to an end foreign to 
itself, so property, being according to its true conception 
and definition only the primary form in which the free- 
will renders itself objectively real, has something of the 
like character of an absolute end, and is proportionately 
sacred and inviolable. ^^ 

The doctrine in Plato that has excited most horror is 
not a community of property, but a community of wives 
and children. How could this great moral teacher have 
so misunderstood and violated the sanctity of the family ? 
There is no sentiment or imagination in his conception 
of marriage ; his one aim is to improve the race without 
regard to individual inclination. The Greek exalted 
friendship above love, and looked upon the family as a 
customary institution, necessary but not sacred like the 



THE PLATOKIC ETHICS. 159 

state. Professor Jowett reminds us that the side from 
which Plato regarded the social problem is one from 
which we habitually turn away. " That the most im- 
portant influence on human life should be wholly left to 
chance or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being dis- 
ciplined or understood, should be required to conform 
only to an external standard of propriety, cannot be 
regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory con- 
dition of human things.''^ 

Plato felt the necessity of a universal community 
in the life of man, the truth implied in the existence 
of society and realized historically in the doctrines of 
Christianity. The ends for which he strove were high 
and noble, but he fell into grave errors as to the 
means that should be used for their attainment. The 
self-will of individuals had been the ruin of Athens 
and of Greece, and in excluding it from his Republic, 
he did not see that he was converting the individual 
into a mere instrument of the state, and that the 
subjective side is as essential to the realization of free- 
dom as the objective. This is the limit of Plato^s 
thought of the state, and it was the limit of his age. 
^^The deficiency of subjectivity is the deficiency of the 
Greek ethical idea itself.'"' (Hegel.) 

Plato sought to stifie the passions and inclinations 
of men and exclude selfishness, by excluding property 
and family life and the choice of occupation ; all of 
which relate to the principle of subjective freedom. 
He clearly recognized that when individuals pursue 
private aims and interests without regard to the com- 
mon welfare, the destruction of the state is imminent 



160 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

But the soul of man is in itself an absolute end and 
aim^ and justice demands that each individual^ by his 
own self-conscious knowing and willing^ shall enter 
into harmony with other individuals through institu- 
tions^ the family, society and the state. 

Plato condemned the particular interest of the indi- 
vidual as an unworthy factor in the ethical organism 
of the State. But this is abstract rather than concrete 
freedom. The opposite of his principle, the setting up 
of the private will of the individual as a supreme au- 
thority, has been advocated in modern times by Eous- 
seau and others. But this view is equally one-sided 
and abstract. 

The State must not ignore the particular opinions 
and volitions of individuals, but must realize through 
them the universal will and interest of man. The 
individual, on the other hand, must not devote him- 
self exclusively to that which is private and special, 
but must comprehend the public interest as his inter- 
est, obeying the law not as an external but an internal 
command. To constitute true freedom the particular 
interests of the individual must harmonize with the 
universal aims of man. Either alone, abstracted from 
the other, is but one side of the truth. 

ESTHETIC. 

A famous side of the Platonic philosophy is the 
Esthetic, the science of the Beautiful. The two ele- 
ments which constitute the beautiful are the sensuous 
phenomenon and the idea ; that which is beautiful in 
the sensuous is spiritual, the idea shining through it 
visibly. Fairer than the beautiful body is the beauti- 



THE PLATONIC ETHICS. 161 

fill soul ; fairest of all is the pure Idea of the Beauti- 
ful to which nothing material clings. All that is good 
is beautiful ; Truths Beauty and Goodness^ three in 
one^ constitute the Platonic Trinity. 

CONCLUSION. 

"^^This may be given as the chief content of the 
Platonic Philosophy/^ says Hegel; ''first, the acci- 
dental form of discourse in which noble free men con- 
verse without other interests than that of the spiritual 
life of Theory ; secondly, they come, led only by the 
content, to the deepest ideas and most beautiful 
thoughts like precious stones which one finds, if not 
exactly in a desert, yet upon a dry journey ; thirdly, 
there is found no systematic connection, though all 
flows from one common interest ; fourthly, the sub- 
jectivity of the Idea is everywhere lacking ; but, fifthly, 
the substantial Idea forms the basis/^ 

THE OLDER ACADEMY. 

Plato^s instructions had assembled in the Academy 
a numerous circle of hearers, many of whom attracted 
by his fame came from distant countries. It is due 
to him more than to any other individual that Ath- 
ens retained her intellectual supremacy even after 
her loss of political power. 

Plato^s immediate successor was his nephew Speu- 
sippus, followed after eight years by Xenocrates, and 
later by other disciples. These various teachers pro- 
fessed to maintain Platen's doctrine unaltered, but 
seem to have neglected dialectic and the theory 
of Ideas, and to have inclined more and more to 
Pythagoreanism and religious mysticism. But we 



162 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

know so little of their teachings that we cannot speak 
of them authoritatively. '' Only a portion of Plato^s 
spiritual legacy descended with his garden to the 
Academy/^ says Zeller ; ^^the full inheritance passed 
over to Aristotle^ who was thereby qualified to trans- 
cend his master/^ 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

LIFE AKD WRITi:^rGS OF ARISTOTLE. 

'' A EISTOTLE is one of the deepest and richest 
-^-^ scientific geniuses that ever lived. ^"^ says Hegel, 
'^a man without equal in ancient and modern times. 
To characterize in brief his labors one would say that 
he has traveled over the whole range of human knowl- 
edge, has pushed his investigations on all sides into the 
real universe, and has brought into subjection to Ideas 
the wealth and untamed luxuriance of the realms of 
nature. ^^ 

He was born in the year 384 B. C, at Stagira, a 
city in Thrace, colonized by Greeks. To his birthplace 
he owes the famous appellation of " The Stagirite,^^ 
given to him in later days. His father, Nicomachus, was 
the physician and friend of the Macedonian King Amyu- 
tas. All his ancestors were physicians, tracing their ped- 
igree to the son of Esculapius. We have no means of 
knowing how far this inheritance influenced his scientific 
activity, much of the testimony concerning his early life 
being untrustworthy. 

He came to Athens in his seventeenth year, and en- 
tered the school of Plato, where he remained for twenty 
years until his master^s death. We cannot doubt that 
during this time he laid the foundation of that won- 
derful knowledge and erudition which enabled him 

163 



164 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

afterward to comprehend in his system of thought all 
earlier speculations^ enriched by multifarious allusions 
that prove he was as keen a student of nature as of men 
and books. It is said that Plato called Aristotle the 
''mind of the school/^ Aristotle regarded Plato as a 
revered and honored teacher^ notwithstanding his ap- 
parent unfairness in the criticism of Plato^s philosophy. 
''The bad may not even praise Plato/^ he says. 

It is not known why Speusippus rather than Aristotle 
was chosen as Plato^s successor in the Academy. On 
account of this slight^ or for other reasons^ Aristotle 
left Athens immediately after the death of Plato to 
reside at the court of Hermias/ prince of Atarneus^ 
in Mysia. He was accompanied by Plato's faithful dis- 
ciple Xenocrates^ a proof of the friendly relations subsist- 
ing between Aristotle and his master. Hermias was 
afterward betrayed into the hands of the Persians and 
crucified^ and Aristotle fled to Mitylene with his wife. 
Prom Mitylene Aristotle was called by Philip, King 
of Macedon, to superintend the education of his son 
Alexander, then thirteen years old. " The culture of 
Alexander is a sufficient reply to all the prating about 
the practical usefulness of speculative philosophy/^ says 
Hegel. Aristotle sought to develop and strengthen the 
inborn greatness of Alexander's mind and character, 
to lead him to perfect self-possession and independence. 
It is in part owing to his wise teacher that Alexander 
was a thinker and a student as well as a world-conqueror, 
and that, even amid his later excesses and temptations, 
he never ceased to reverence moral truth and beauty. 
He was enabled through his conquests to scatter far 



LIFE AKD WRITIKGS OF ARISTOTLE. 165 

and wide the germs of Greek culture^ with the conscious 
purpose of elevating those whom he subjugated. He 
never forgot the interests of art and science^ sending 
to Aristotle either specimens, or drawings, or descrip- 
tions, of whatever new animals and plants he found 
in Asia. He always regarded Aristotle with love and 
respect, although a certain coldness sprang up between 
the two in later years. 

After Alexander's departure for Asia, Aristotle re- 
turned to Athens, and opened a school of philosophy 
in a gymnasium called the Lyceum. His school derived 
the name Peripatetic from the avenues of shade trees 
where the great teacher walked, as he conversed on 
philosophy with a few favorite disciples. He is said 
to have delivered acroamatic (or technical) and exoteric 
discourses, the first on abstract metaphysical doctrines 
to a chosen circle of hearers, the second on educational 
topics to the general public. But it is clear that the 
discourses of a philosopher, whether technical or pop- 
ular, are the product of his thought, which alone gives 
significance to his utterances. '' One may see for him- 
self which works of Aristotle are really speculative and 
philosophic,'" says Hegel, ^^and which ones are to a 
greater extent of a merely empirical nature ; they are 
not for this reason, however, to be looked upon as op- 
posite in content as though Aristotle wrote some things 
for the people and other things for his intimate disci- 
ples." 

The work that he accomplished during the twelve 
years that he taught in Athens appears incredible. All 
his writings belong to this period. The stupendous task 



166 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

which he achieved was nothing less than to found and 
elaborate the deepest and most comprehensive system 
of philosophy that the world has ever known. 

On the death of Alexander, a sudden storm of op- 
position against his successor broke out in Athens. 
Aristotle was regarded as a member of the Macedonian 
party, and from political reasons was accused of impiety. 
He fled to Chalcis in Euboea, that ^^the Athenians 
might not have a second opportunity to sin against 
philosophy. ^^ He died there in his sixty- third year, fol- 
lowing in death one great contemporary, Alexander, 
and preceding another, Demosthenes. 

The moral personality of Aristotle as it is revealed 
in his writings, in his lasfc will and testament, and in 
the few facts that we possess concerning his life, is 
high and pure. He was grateful to his benefactors, 
gentle and humane in his treatment of slaves and depen- 
dents, a loyal friend, and a loving husband. In his 
noble conception of marriage he went far beyond the 
views of his countrymen. His morality was supported 
by a comprehensive knowledge of humanity and the 
deepest reflection ; it had nothing in it one-sided and 
exaggerated. 

Never has the world seen such great and different 
gifts united in one person as in Aristotle. He was both 
a scientist and a speculative philosopher, a close observer 
of the empirical facts of nature and an interpreter of 
their hidden significance, analyzing rigidly individual 
differences and particularities without losing sight of 
their relation and unity. 

His style of exposition is less artistic but more 



LIFE AKD WRITINGS OF ARISTOTLE. 167 

scientific than that of Plato. Exactness and definite- 
ness are his aim rather than beauty ; he limits him- 
self strictly to the problem of knowledge. He lacks 
the Platonic fervor and enthusiasm^ but surpasses his 
master in the ripeness of his judgment and his many- 
sided and thorough investigation of every domain of 
knowledge. 

Whatever may have been his means of help^ we 
must regard with awe the achievements of Aristotle^ 
executed in one brief human life^ the conquest of a 
strong soul over a weakly body. He designated to 
philosophy its course for centuries^ and mapped out 
for the Greeks the points they had reached in scientific 
culture, illuminated by his own original thought and 
inquiries. Seldom has one so truly fulfilled his his- 
torical mission, so gloriously solved the scientific 
problems bequeathed to him by his predecessors; and 
we cannot but believe from the evidence of his work 
that the man was as great and admirable as the phil- 
osopher. 

Aristotle left behind him a great many manuscripts, 
but it is uncertain whether we possess a single one in a 
genuine and uninjured shape. A strange story is told 
of their fate for tw^o centuries. Aristotle, it is said, 
bequeathed his library, including these manuscripts, to 
Theophrastus. It was the first important library in 
Greece, collected by means of Aristotle^s wealth and 
the assistance of Alexander. Theophrastus, in his turn, 
bequeathed it to his pupil Neleus, and the heirs of 
Neleus, fearing that the king of Pergamus would 
seize Aristotle's writings for his own royal library. 



168 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

concealed them in a cellar, where they were forgotten 
and badly injured. A century later, they were discov- 
ered and sold to Appelicon of Teos, who filled up the 
gaps to the best of his ability and gave them to the 
public. Soon after Appelicon's death the Roman Sulla 
conquered Athens, and the writings of Aristotle were 
among his spoils. From Sulla they passed into the 
possession of a Greek grammarian, Tyrannion ; from 
Tyrannion copies were received by Andronicus of 
Rhodes, the Peripatetic, who made a catalogue of their 
contents, and sent them forth in a new and improved 
edition. 

The story assumes that the writings of Aristotle were 
inaccessible to students for nearly two centuries, and is 
refuted by Zeller and other authorities, who find in the 
works of these same centuries traces of an acquaintance 
with their principal doctrines. 

What cannot be denied is the fact that many of 
Aristotle^s manuscripts are badly disfigured, that they 
are incomplete and full of omissions, that individual 
parts are disconnected, that verbal repetitions occur, 
all going to prove the injury they have suffered. Zel- 
ler thinks this is due in part to the circumstances 
under which they were composed and published, to 
the use that was made of them in instruction, and to 
the ignorance of editors and copyists. Fortunately 
we have enough that is genuine to enable us to form 
a definite idea of the Aristotelian philosophy, not only 
in its extent and compass, but in many of its de- 
tails. 

The writings of Aristotle passed from the Greeks 



LIFE AKD WRITII^GS OF AEISTOTLE. 169 

into the hands of Arabian scholars and commentators. 
They became known to the western world in the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries^ and formed the basis 
of Scholasticism. ^^To the ancients, Aristotle was 
' Nature's Private Secretary ; ' to the middle ages, 
after 1150, he was simply ^ The Philosopher/ or '^The 
Master of those that know ; ' and, though, for a brief 
period, his sun was eclipsed by reactionary influences, 
philosophers of nearly all modern schools, as well as 
scientists and poets, have vied with each other in do- 
ing him honor. Among these may be mentioned Leib- 
nitz, Lessing, Goethe, Hegel, Cuvier, Bain.'' 

In point of subject-matter, the writings of Aristotle 
may be divided into physical, metaphysical, logical 
and ethical. This classification is made for conven- 
ience, and was not adopted by Aristotle himself, who 
nowhere supplies any scheme or skeleton or general 
division of his system of philosophy. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

GEN"ERAL CHARACTER OF THE ARISTOTELIAN 
PHILOSOPHY. 

'^ r I iHE subject-matter of philosophy is the most 
-^ knowable/^ says Aristotle; ^^ to- wit, principles 
and causes. For through these^ and by these, all other 
things are known ; principles are, however, not to be 
known through substitutes.^^ Aristotle here takes his 
stand against the ordinary mode of view ; the knowl- 
edge he seeks to gain is the knowledge of final causes. 
^'^Man has come to philosophy through wonder, ^^ he 
says. ^^ Wherefore if men began to philosophize in 
order to escape ignorance, it is clear that they pursued 
scientific knowledge for the sake of knowing it, and 
not for any utility it might possess. This is also 
shown by the entire external course of events. For 
first after men have supplied their necessary wants 
and those requisite for ease and comfort, they have 
begun to seek philosophical knowledge. Therefore they 
seek it for no ulterior utility ; and as we say that a 
free man is one who exists only for his own sake, 
and not for the sake of another, thus is philosophy 
the free science among sciences, for it alone exists 
for itself — a knowing of knowing. * ♦ * Other 
sciences may be more necessary than philosophy, but 
none is more excellent. ^^ 

170 



CHAEACTER OF ARISTOTELIAJST PHILOSOPHY. 171 

This doctrine is like that of Socrates and Plato. 
But Aristotle differs from his master in connecting 
philosophy more closely with experience. Plato denies 
any real worth to the world of the changing and 
becoming except so far as its contradictions lead us 
away from it to the contemplation of pure Ideas ; eter- 
nity^ the supra-sensible worlds are more real to him 
than the affairs of this life. Aristotle^ on the other 
hand^ finds a more positive relation between thought 
and experience, not holding them apart abstractly, 
but comprehending both in concrete unity. Plato 
cared little for the individual appearance, the variety 
and multiplicity of things, seeking only to know 
concepts. Ideas. Aristotle agrees with Plato that 
knowledge has to do with the universal essence of 
things, but he regards it as his especial problem to 
derive the individual from the universal, to explain 
appearances. He declares that science relates to the 
customary, what usually happens, as well as to the 
necessary, and must seek to reach approximate truth, 
the greatest possible probability, where absolute cer- 
tainty is unattainable. '' Why should he who thirsts 
after knowledge, ^^ he says, ^-refuse to seek some where 
he cannot have all ? ^^ 

To identify Aristotle^s method with empiricism is 
incorrect, although his procedure might warrant such 
an assumption. '^^But he is in the deepest sense spec- 
ulative, "" says Hegel. '^All sides of knowing enter his 
mind, all interest him ; all are handled by him with 
depth and exhaustiveness. Abstraction may easily get 
confused in the empirical extent of a phenomenon, 



172 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and be at a loss how to find its application and veri- 
fication^ and be obliged at last to take up with a par- 
tial procedure without being able to exhaust all the 
phases of the phenomenon. Aristotle^ however^ in that 
he takes into consideration all sides of the universe, 
seizes the whole of each individual sphere, as a spec- 
ulative philosopher, and treats it in such a manner as 
to arrive at its deepest speculative idea.^^ 

His method, like that of Socrates and Plato, is dia- 
lectic, but he unites with it the observation of a 
natural scientist. He examines the thoughts of the 
earlier philosophers, corrects their one-sidedness, in- 
vestigates the subject from contradictory points of view, 
and finally passes to the speculative consideration of 
the whole matter. He thus seems to be empirical 
while he is really philosophical ; '^ for the empirical, 
comprehended in its synthesis, is the speculative 
idea. '' 

^^ Aristotle moves essentially on the ground and in 
the direction of the Socratic-Platonic dialectic,^^ says 
Zeller ; ^Mie developed the Socratic induction to con- 
scious technique, completed it by the doctrine of dem- 
onstration, whose especial creator he is, and by all the 
discussion therewith connected, and gave in his writ- 
ings the most perfect model of a dialectic investigation, 
strictly and sharply carried through from one side to 
all sides. If we did not know it otherwise, we should 
recognize in his scientific procedure the pupil of Plato. ^^ 

Aristotle unites with dialectic a close and rigid scru- 
tiny of the facts of the physical world. The philoso- 
pher, according to his thought, must not lose sight of 



CHARACTER OF ARISTOTELIAK PHILOSOPHY. 173 

the efficient and material causes of things while seek- 
ing their concept and final end. Aristotle is not merely 
one of the most speculative thinkers^ but a careful and 
unwearied observer, a diligent and erudite scholar. 
Experience is for him material to be developed into 
thought. He supports his philosophic structure upon 
a basis of physical knowledge^ attained through a 
many-sided examination and study of facts and appear- 
ances. We shall not find in him the exactness of 
procedure demanded by empirical science in modern 
times ; the world was yet too young, means of help 
were wanting to exact observation, the science of math- 
ematics was not far enough advanced. Aristotle^'s work 
in this field was that of a pioneer ; he could not be 
expected to discriminate as carefully as later investiga- 
tors between the empirical and the philosophical me- 
thods of inquiry. 

His style is severely logical, and therefore lacks the 
dramatic and artistic perfection of the Platonic dia- 
logue. He verifies every step of his process with rigid 
exactness, and clothes his thought in dry technical 
prose rather than in poetic myth or graceful conversa- 
tion. His speech is purely scientific^ and in this re- 
spect surpasses that of his master. 

If we take a general view of his system of thought 
we shall find it resting upon a Socratic-Platonic basis, 
yet at the same time original and independent, offering 
an entirely new solution of the way in which thought 
is related to matter. Essential being, according to 
Plato, is only to be found in the world of eternal 
ideas^ apart from appearances ; but^ for Aristotle^ the 



174 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

idea as the essence of things cannot be separated from 
things themselves^ it is the form toward which the 
sensuous strives with inner necessity. It is one and 
the same being that exists undeveloped as potentiality, 
developed as actuality. The world of the changing 
and becoming is thus explained, and at the heart of 
things we find infinite energy. 

There is no systematic classification and division of 
Aristotle^s philosophy. He goes from particular to par- 
ticular and seems always to be philosophizing on the 
individual, the special. ^^He obtains thus a plurality 
of coordinated sciences/^ says Schwegler, ^^each one 
of which has its independent foundation, but no high- 
est science which should comprehend all.^^ 

According to the later Peripatetics, Aristotle divides 
philosophy into theoretical and practical, the one treat- 
ing of knowledge whose end is found in itself, the 
other of knowledge relating to action and conduct. 
Theoretical philosophy is again subdivided into math- 
ematics, physics, and '^^ first philosophy.'^ He also 
speaks of a third form of knowledge, relating to the 
artistic creation of works of art. But this classifica- 
tion is not adopted by Aristotle himself, nor does he 
furnish us anywhere a general outline or summary of 
his system. 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

aeistotle's logic. 

A EISTOTLE is the father of logic, as Euclid is 
^^^-^ the father of geometry. He has discovered and 
described the formal activity of the pure understand- 
ing for all time. His writings on this subject are 
comprised under the name Organon. Aristotle himself 
did not use the word Logic, which was probably in- 
vented afterwards by the Stoics ; he spoke of Analytic, 
by which he meant the science of analyzing the forms 
of reasoning. ^^ There is the same course to be pur- 
sued in philosophy, and in every science or branch of 
knowledge,"' he says. ^'^You must study facts. Ex- 
perience alone can give general principles on any sub- 
ject. .... When the facts in each branch are 
brought together, it will be the province of the logician 
to set out the demonstrations in a manner clear and 
fit for use. When the investigation into nature is 
complete, you will be able in some cases to exhibit a 
demonstration ; in other cases you will have to say that 
demonstration is not attainable."'' 

Aristotle treats first of the universal predicates of 
being, the Categories. The object of our thinking 
must fall under the following heads : Substance, quan- 
tity, quality, relation, where, when, position, posses- 
sion, action, passion. These categories present the 

175 



176 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

different sides from which things can be regarded^ but 
do not describe their real nature. 

The most important category is substance^ which in 
a strict sense is the individual. It is the original un- 
changeable essence in each things different from every- 
thing derived. All the other categories lead back to 
substance, and express either its attributes or deter- 
minations. The treatment of this question is therefore 
ontological, and belongs to metaphysics as well as to 
logic. 

Knowledge relates to the essence of things, the 
universal, to final causes. But the universal can only 
be known through the individual ; causes can only be 
known through effects. The soul carries in itself the 
ground of its knowing, but this knowing is devel- 
oped only through experience. What in itself is first 
is for us last. The first for us is sensuous perception, 
which sees the individual ; but in the individual the 
universal is implicit. We are thus led from the ap- 
pearance to the essence, from effects to causes. 

The concept is an expression of the essence of that 
which it denotes. But essence relates only to form ; 
we can have no concept of the sensuous in itself. We 
can define, not this sensuous object, but this definite 
manner of sensuous existence, the general form of the 
object. Every concept includes, or may include, many 
single things ; thought and its interpreter, language, 
seek ever the universal. 

The concept forms the starting point for all scien- 
tific investigation, and is at the same time the aim 
toward which it strives. Knowing is nothing more 



Aristotle's logic. 177 

than insight into the ground of things^ and this in- 
sight is completed in the concept ; the ivliat is the 
same as the why, we cognize the concept of a thing 
when we cognize its cause. 

The concept in itself is neither true nor false ; 
something must be affirmed or denied of it in order to 
constitute a proposition. To the concept^ or the noun^ 
a verb must be added. When this is done we have a 
judgment;, which is necessarily true or false. Every 
affirmation is opposed to a denial, so that either the 
one or the other must be true, and no third is pos- 
sible. Hence the principle of contradiction and of 
excluded third or middle. ^' Of the affirmation and 
the negation of the same thing, the one is always 
false, the other true.'' Between the two terms of a 
contradiction there is no mean ; it is necessary either to 
affirm or to deny every predicate of every subject." 

^''Aristotle was the first to name the syllogism," says 
Zeller, ^^and to observe that every connection and ad- 
vance of our thinking rests on the syllogistic joining of 
judgments. The word, indeed, existed before, but 
Aristotle stamped it with the technical meaning which 
it has ever since borne. ^'^In introducing the word, it 
must not be supposed that he introduced, or invented, 
the process of reasoning to which he applied it, or that 
he even pretended to do so," says Sir Alexander Grant. 
"^^The grammarian who first distinguished nouns from 
verbs and gave them their names, did not invent nouns 
and verbs, but only called attention to their existence in 
language ; and he who first made rules of syntax was 
only recording the ways in which men naturally speak 



178 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and write, not making innovations in language ; and so 
Aristotle with his syllogism only clearly pointed out a 
process which had always, though unconsciously, been 
carried on. There is no doubt that, ever since they have 
possessed reason at all, men have made syllogisms, 
though like M. Jourdain speaking prose, they have for 
the most part been unconscious of it/^ 

Aristotle defines the syllogism as a form of ratioci- 
nation in which, from certain premises and through 
their means, something farther and different from 
them necessarily follows. Every syllogism must contain 
three concepts, and only three, one of which, the 
middle term, is either subject in one of the premises 
and predicate in the other (first figure), or predicate 
in both premises (second figure), or subject in both 
(third figure). 

Upon the basis of the syllogism is built the theory of 
scientific demonstration, which Aristotle established in 
the second Analytic. Knowing consists in the knowl- 
edge of causes, and the cause of an appearance is that 
from which it necessarily proceeds. Proof is a conclusion 
from necessary premises, but may include in a con- 
ditioned way that which occurs usually. The purely 
accidental can neither be proved nor known. But the 
necessary is only that which belongs to the essence and 
the concept of the object ; therefore the concept of 
everything is that from which demonstration proceeds 
and toward which it strives. '^Its problem consists in 
this,^^ says Zeller, ^' it must not only show the determi- 
nations that belong to every object by virtue of its con- 
cept, but also the mediations through which they are 



Aristotle's logic. 179 

brought to it ; it must derive the particular from the 
uniyersal;, appearances from their causes/' 

Aristotle maintains that there is a necessary limit to 
this mediatory knowing. Whether we ascend from the 
particular to the universal^, from the subject which is not 
a predicate to ever higher predicates^ or descend from the 
most universal, the predicate which is not a subject, to 
the particular, we reach a point where further progress is 
impossible ; otherwise, there could be neither demon- 
stration nor concept. To prove everything is impossible: 
'^ Science must commence with something which is not 
proved at all,'' says Aristotle. It must start from im- 
mediate principles which cannot be established by any 
syllogistic reasoning. The axioms of Euclid are a speci- 
men of such principles. But every science has its own ; 
its first truths must consist of indemonstrable definitions. 
Their certainty is recognized by an immediate activity 
of the reason, an activity that is only gradually de- 
veloped by experience, according to Aristotle. 

All scientific knowing proceeds either deductively 
from the universal to the individual or inductively 
from the individual to the universal. ^^The prior and 
more cognizable for us," is what lies nearest to the 
sphere of sensation, but '^^the absolutely prior and 
more cognizable" is what is most remote from that 
sphere. That which is clear in itself is the intelligible ; 
that which is more evident to us is the sensible. The 
limits of knowledge are, on the one hand, the individual; 
on the other, the most general. It is more scientific to 
pass from the ^"^ prior in nature" to the "^"^ prior for us," 
from the condition to the conditioned ; but for those who 



180 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

cannot follow this order the inverse one must be em- 
ployed. '' Plunged in the world of the senses^ we must 
learn by degrees to discern the object of reason. ^-^ 

Induction is necessarily imperfect because it is im- 
possible to know all individuals. This lack of knowl- 
edge Aristotle seeks to supply by proofs of probability. 
He finds in dialectic a means of help so far as it considers 
the different sides from which an object may be regarded. 
It is not strange that his procedure is open to criticism 
from the standpoint of the modern scientist when we con- 
sider the means at our disposal for empirical investiga- 
tion. To appreciate his real service in the observation 
and collection of facts^ and his acuteness in their expla- 
nation^ we must judge him by the knowledge and scien- 
tific instruments of help possessed by his age. 

^^To have reorganized and defined the forms that 
thinking takes in us, is the immortal achievement of 
Aristotle/^ says Hegel. "^^For what interests us other- 
wise is the concrete thinking absorbed in outer intuition; 
thoso forms constitute a net of infinite movableness sunk 
therein, and to fix these fine threads drawing through 
everything is a masterpiece of empiricism, and this 
consciousness is of absolute worth.^^ 

The mental activity that Aristotle explains logically is 
the activity of the understanding. It therefore appears 
as if thinking were something subjective, and its laws 
merely formal, without content. The thing in itself may 
be something quite different from the object of our 
thought. It is what Hegel calls the logic of the finite, 
and must add to itself the logic of the infinite in order 
to attain truth. The forms of thought must be regarded 



ARISTOTLE^S LOGIC. 181 

in their totality^ which is at the same time subjective and 
objective. Their content is then the speculative idea, 
and the logic of understanding becomes the logic of 
reason. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Aristotle's metaphysics. 

TN the ''First Philosophy/' or the '' Metaphysics/' as 
--L it is termed to-day, the speculative idea of Aristotle 
is unfolded. The work is not a connected whole, but 
several sketches which follow one main idea, not always 
clearly written or well arranged. 

Aristotle defines pure philosophy as ''the science of 
what exists, in so far as it exists, and what pertains 
to it in-and-for-itself." In the sphere of scientific knowl- 
edge that is the highest which relates to the ultimate 
causes of things, and is therefore First Philosophy, 
or wisdom. The word Metaphysics — things that follow 
after physics — was first used by Aristotle's scholars. 

Every science supposes three distinct elements, the 
subject which is demonstrated, the attribute which 
demonstrates, and the axiom, the principle of demon- 
stration. It shows the relation of a subject to an 
attribute in a thesis of which it is the only judge. 
Metaphysics co-ordinates all these theses by superior 
axioms ; it is the universal science. The categories are 
its genera ; Being-in-itself is the common basis of 
categories and propositions. Being is that of which 
everything is affirmed and which affirms nothing. 

Aristotle begins with a sketch of the history of 
philosophy. This is necessary in order to explain its 

182 



A^RISTOTLE^S METAPHYSICS. 183 

terms^ the result of the theories of former ages. He 
carefully examines the views of his predecessors^ who 
began by inquiring after the material principle^ then 
advanced gradually to the idea of motive power or 
efficient cause^ but never clearly developed form or 
essence and the final cause. He censures the old 
lonians for having made a single element the primitive 
substance^, when the sensuous changes of bodies are 
conditioned by the opposition of elements. Heraclitus 
committed the same mistake in representing his first 
principle as fire^ and in his more important affirmation 
of the Becoming, '^^the flow of all things ^^ he overlooked 
the fact that change itself presupposes a substratum 
which is unchanged and unchangeable. 

Empedocles first introduced the principle of motion, 
but did not make clear the difference between his 
two efficient causes, love and hate, since love not 
only unites but also separates, and hate not only 
separates but also unites. To the views of Empedocles 
concerning substance, Aristotle objects that they would 
make qualitative change impossible. Against the Atom- 
ists he proves that atoms which are only quantitatively 
different and do not influence each other cannot ex- 
plain the reciprocal action of bodies, becoming and 
change. The physics of Anaxagoras is related to 
that of Empedocles and the Atomists ; but Aristotle 
acknowledges the great service of this philospher in 
positing nous, or intelligence, as the principle of 
all things. 

As to the Eleatics Aristotle asserts that their the- 
ories contain no principle for the explanation of ap- 



184 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

pearances. They deny becoming and the multiplicity 
of things^ overlooking the fact that while nothing 
becomes from absolute non-being, everything be- 
comes from relative non-being. Zeno^s arguments 
against motion are equally one-sided with those of 
Parmenides against non-being, change and becoming ; 
space and time are treated as discrete quantities, and 
not as continuous, whereas they are both. The prin- 
ciple of Pythagoras, number, is also defective in not 
explaining motion and change, the basis of all natural 
occurrences. 

Aristotle^s view of the Sophists is already known ; 
their wisdom was but apparent, and concerned only 
the transient and unreal. He acknowledged the great- 
ness of Socrates, but sought to prove that his work as 
a philosopher was limited to ethical inquiries, and did 
not include the setting-up of a metaphysical principle. 

It is in Aristotle^s criticism of the Platonic Ideas 
that we discover the essential difference between his 
system of thought and that of Plato. Aristotle agrees 
with Plato that only the universal essence of things 
can be known, that it is necessary to go beyond the 
transient appearance to its underlying reality. But he 
denies that the universal is something substantial for 
itself outside of appearances, for how can an essence 
and that of which it is the essence exist apart ? He 
says that Plato^s ideas are only ^^ things of sense 
immortalized and eternized, ^^ incapable of explaining 
the world of appearances, and furthermore making it 
impossible. What is the imperishable substance in 
the idea man outside of the individuals who partici- 



Aristotle's metaphysics. 185 

pate in this idea ? How are we to conceive this 
participation in the idea if the individual is wholly 
sundered from the universal ? In every case, says 
Aristotle, we shall have to assume a third man, a pro- 
totype of the supersensuous idea of man, and of its 
sensuous manifestation, individual man. In assuming 
a double series of sensuous and non-sensuous sub- 
stances under one and the same name, the adherents 
of the ideal theory resemble men who increase their 
numbers in order to facilitate the process of counting. 
Aristotle criticises especially the immobility of the idea, 
its entire lack of causality to produce change or to ex- 
plain nature. We recognize the spirit of the natural 
scientist who seeks to determine actuality through a 
full and complete elucidation of facts. 

With Aristotle as with Plato the idea is related to 
an objective reality ; but the one teaches its transcend- 
ent existence, the other its immanence in the the sen- 
suous appearance, the noumenon in the phenomenon. 
Socrates, through his investigation of the nature of 
concepts, led the way to the theory of Ideas ; but 
Socrates never separated the universal from the in- 
dividuals included under it, or set it outside of the 
world of real things. Aristotle represents clearly the 
weakness of the Platonic theory, though some of his 
objections rest on misinterpretations. He unites the 
realism of the natural scientist with Plato's logical 
idealism, and the more he finds to disapprove in 
his predecessors the more he seeks to answer their 
unsolved problems. 

Hegel explains clearly and decisively the nature of 



186 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the antithesis between the Ideas of Plato and Aris- 
totle. The Idea in Plato is in itself essentially con- 
crete and determined ; its defect^ or one-sidedness, is 
that it is only in-itself, or potential ; it is inert, and 
does not yet express the activity of the process of 
actualization. The Idea in Plato is the objective, the 
good, the final cause, the universal in general ; it 
lacks the principle of vital subjectivity as the moment 
of actuality, although this principle is implicitly con- 
tained in his definition of the Absolute as the unity 
of opposites. But Aristotle defines it more precisely 
as Energy, whose nature it is to dirempt, or dupli- 
cate this being-for-itself ; for, as Aristotle says, ^^ The 
Entelechy sunders.''^ 

The affirmative principle, mere abstract self-identity, 
is the highest with Plato ; Aristotle develops the prin- 
ciple of negativity, or individualization, as distinction 
or difference, not in the sense of a contingent and 
merely special subjectivity, but of the pure subjectiv- 
ity. Aristotle asserts that being and non-being are 
not the same, but he does not mean by this pure be- 
ing or non-being, the abstraction which is but the 
transition of the one into the other; he understands 
under that tvliich is substance, idea, Eeason, in the 
sense of an active final cause. On the one hand he 
sets up the Universal against the principle of mere 
change ; on the other he defends the principle of ac- 
tivity against the Pythagorean system of numbers 
and the Platonic system of ideas. ^^ Aristotle^s cate- 
gory of activity is change, but a change posited within 
the Universal, change remaining self -identical ; con- 



Aristotle's metaphysics. 187 

sequently a determining which is self-determining, and 
therefore the self-realizing, universal final cause; in 
mere change^ on the contrary, self-preservation is not 
necessarily involved. This is the chief doctrine added 
to philosophy by Aristotle.^' 

Aristotle defines and investigates four metaphysical 
principles : First, Form or Essence ; secondly. Mat- 
ter or substance ; thirdly, the principle of Motion, or 
Efficient Cause ; and fourthly, the Final Cause, or the 
Good. Closely examined, the four resolve themselves 
into the single antithesis of matter and form. Thus, 
in a house, the building materials are the matter, its 
architectural idea the form, the efficient cause the 
builder, the completed structure the end or final cause. 
The efficient cause, the builder, converts the matter 
(potentiality) into form (actuality). The efficient cause 
is therefore identical with the formal ; the form of 
the statue in the mind of the sculptor is the cause of 
the motion through which it is produced. Form and 
end also coincide, as both are united in the actual 
statue. 

In the relation of form to matter Aristotle dis- 
covers the possibility of the becoming. His predeces- 
sors argued that what becomes can neither originate 
from what is nor from what is not ; Aristotle seeks 
to prove that what becomes is and is not relatively 
at the same time. The uneducated man who becomes 
educated must contain in himself the ability for cul- 
ture ; all becoming is a transition of potentiality into 
reality. That which becomes warm must have been 
formerly cold, that which becomes knowledge must 



188 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

have been formerly ignorance ; but cold in itself can- 
not be transformed into warmth^ nor ignorance into 
knowledge ; the becoming is a transition from one 
condition into the opposite condition. 

The presupposition of the becomings the substrate 
of change, Aristotle calls matter. It is that which 
remains when we abstract from all which is the re- 
sult of becoming, substance without determination or 
distinction, that which is everything potentially and 
nothing really, pure potentiality. It is as little non- 
being as being, it is rather possible being. In itself 
it is unknowable because it is without determination ; 
we can only attain to its concept through analogy. 
Conceived as a counterpart to form it is a positive 
negative. 

The concepts of the real and the potential are 
applied by Aristotle in the same way as those of 
form and matter. One and the same thing may be 
related to another as matter and form, in that the 
potential, in this the real ; wood to the finished house 
is matter, to the growing tree form. 

In the development of potentiality (matter) to 
actuality (form), different degrees are to be distin- 
guished. The lowest degree is matter, absolutely 
formless, pure potentiality; the highest is form with- 
out matter, pure actuality, absolute Spirit. Between 
the two extremes is a gradation of existences which 
are both matter and form, the first continually trans- 
lating itself into the second. 

Matter, as the formless and indefinite, is that from 
which chance in nature proceeds. Aristotle under- 



Aristotle's metaphysics. 189 

stands by the accidental that which may or may not 
happen to a thing, which is not contained in its es- 
sence and does not therefore occur necessarily. He 
finds the ground of the accidental in the nature of 
the finite, or of matter, which as the indefinite con- 
tains the possibility of opposite determinations. The 
accidental happens through the influence of external 
circumstances. A man digs a hole in the ground for 
the purpose of finding water, and discovers a hidden 
treasure ; the final aim of the digging is disturbed 
by a mediate cause. 

But Aristotle finds something more positive than 
the accidental in the nature of matter or substance ; 
he regards it as the seat of motion or change, of a 
striving after form, and finally as the ground of in- 
dividual existence. It is difficult to comprehend what 
he means by this since he regards the individual 
alone as something substantial, and yet places the 
ground of actuality in form. On the one side, he 
recognizes with Plato that the object of knowledge is 
the concept, the universal ; on the other, he asserts 
that the universal does not lie outside of the indi- 
vidual. He does not explain how the two are related 
as form and matter, or how the individual that is 
both form and substance should appear real if the 
ground of reality lies in form alone. 

He has been interpreted differently by different 
commentators, but the explanation of Hegel is the 
clearest. Hegel finds in the Aristotelian substance 
three movements, the first of which has a matter 
differing from its actual form, and is consequently 



190 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

finite. The second contains the activity which is the 
object of its process. ^' This is the in-and-for-itself 
determined understanding whose content is the final 
cause which it actualizes through its activity without 
undergoing change like the mere sensuous substance. 
For the soul is essentially entelechy, a general pro- 
cess of determination which posits itself ; not a merely 
formal activity whose content comes from elsewhere.''^ 
The third and highest substance is that in which 
potentiality, activity, and entelechy are united, — the 
Absolute Substance. 

Through his distinction of form and matter, of 
the real and the potential, Aristotle was able to 
solve many of the difficulties of earlier philosophers. 
He could explain how one can be at the same time 
many, how soul and body are one being, how finally 
becoming and change are possible. If matter and form 
are related as the potential to the actual it lies in the 
concept of the first to become the second, and the 
second is the reality of the first. Matter moves towards 
form and develops itself to reality ; form on the other 
hand makes the potential real, and is the energy of 
matter. 

But the energy of matter is motion, the transition 
from the possible to the real. '^ Motion is the perfec- 
tion of matter through the determination of form, for 
matter as such is mere potentiality which has in no 
respect attained reality. ^^ Nothing comes from that 
which is neither potential nor active. Motion is a 
mediator between potential and actual being, a possi- 
bility that stiives toward reality, a reality bound in 



Aristotle's metaphysics. 191 

possibility and therefore incomplete. The merely po- 
tential cannot produce motion^ for it lacks energy : 
the actual cannot produce motion^ for there is nothing 
in it imperfect and undeveloped ; motion can only be 
comprehended as the working of the actual^ or form^ 
upon the potential^ or matter. 

Motion^ with Aristotle, is as eternal as form and 
matter^ whose essential relation it represents. It pre- 
supposes a moving cause, itself unmoved. Absolute 
Spirit, — God. Without this first cause motion would 
be impossible, since that which exists potentially may 
or may not become actual and could not be a principle 
of movement. Aristotle defines the Absolute Essence 
as pure activity, the actus piirus of scholastic philos- 
ophy. '' God is the substance that contains within His 
potentiality also his actuality inseparably united/' — 
(Hegel). 

The actual in the highest sense can only be pure 
form without substance, the moving force and aim of 
the world. There is that which is moved and does not 
move, matter ; that which is at once mover and moved, 
nature; and God, the unmoved mover. The universe 
forms a continuous system of ascending progression 
from the first formless substance to its final end and 
aim — Absolute Goodness and Perfection, or Deity. 

Nature is permeated by the substantial thought which 
gives it life and moves it with constant unrest and de- 
sire ; it works unconsciously for the sole and single aim 
of divine reason. It is disposed in an ascending series 
of terms more and more individualized, each of which 
includes the preceding and points to a superior activity 



192 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and soul. Nature consists in the spontaneity of moye- 
ment^ desire ; desire implies a final end^ a first good 
which engenders it and attracts it to itself^ eternal ob- 
ject of loye^ immovable in the absolute perfection of 
its action. 

God is Absolute Good, without degrees and without 
differences; every being receives from Him good with 
life according to its power. The inequality of beings 
in their participation of good results from the invin- 
cible and fatal necessity of matter. Matter is the po- 
tential which includes imperfection. Everything aspires 
and advances towards Good as its end. In the measure 
that nature breaks away from the necessity of matter 
it is less subject to chance and change ; its freedom 
consists in the desire which attracts it towards the 
good. Evil has its source in potentiality and is only 
manifested in the development of the opposition which 
it encloses, an opposition that does not pass beyond 
the world of contingency and change. The world is 
not divided between two hostile principles ; Absolute 
Good has no contrary, it is the final end of every- 
thing. 

The beauty of the world, the harmonious relation of 
its parts, the glory of the stars and the immutable or- 
der of their courses, — all point to a higher Being from 
whom the uniform motion and intelligent design of the 
universe proceed. Aristotle compares the relation of 
God to the universe to that of a general to his army. 
'' The good of an army is in its order, but above all 
in its chief, ^^ he says; ^^for order is through the chief, 
and not the chief through order/^ 



Aristotle's metaphysics. 193 

God is pure activity, energy itself, prior to poten- 
tiality, not according to time, but logically. Time is 
a subordinate element of that which is universal ; the 
Absolute Essence is timeless. God is in ^'^the eternal 
heavens,'^ and in the thinking reason of man. He is 
the final cause whose content is desire and thought. 
^^For the final cause of anything resides in* those things 
of which the one is in existence and the other is not. 
Now, that which first imparts motion does so as a thing 
that is loved, and that which has motion impressed 
upon it imparts motion to other things. ^^ 

The activity of the divine nature is the activity of 
pure thought, thought thinking itself. Nature is 
continually elevating itself from formless matter to- 
ward this activity, at every step manifesting more and 
more clearly the end of its being. The term of its 
progress is man, a being who thinks, whose intelligence 
is able to disengage itself little by little from the senses 
and from imagination until, freed from everything ex- 
ternal, it possesses and comprehends itself. The sover- 
eign good for the human soul is pure thought ; active 
intelligence is absolute immateriality. 

Potentiality is found in human thinking because it 
is to a certain extent in a material subject limited 
by finite conditions. '^ If a man thinks nothing, ^^ 
Aristotle asks, ^' what advantage has he over one who 
sleeps ? '' If he thinks, and is controlled by another, 
his thinking is not an activity, but a potentiality. 
It makes a difference also whether the object of his 
thought is that which is accidental and transient, 
or that which is permanent and eternal. In one 



194 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

case the activity is wasted on that which is inferior 
to itself; in the other the thinking and the object 
of thought are identical. Thought, therefore, that 
thinks itself, is the highest and most excellent. It 
is the absolute final cause, or the Good. It cannot 
have its object outside of itself ; it is not the mani- 
festation of a substance and the product of an ac- 
tivity different from itself. 

The essence and the dignity of intelligence lie 
not in the power, but in the act of thinking. 
Every good, every perfection, is in action ; it is bet- 
ter and sweeter to love than to be loved, to be the 
subject than the object of thought, better to act 
than be acted upon. Pure intelligence must be its 
own object, thought thinking itself, the thought of 
thought. 

For us, as individuals, the activity of pure think- 
ing is permitted only for a short time, and is most 
excellent : ^^ It is on this account that waking, feel- 
ing, thinking, and hopes and memories, produce the 
richest pleasure. ^^ The moments of speculative con- 
templation in which our thought rediscovers itself in 
the object of its thought are the ones in which we 
attain to a feeble conception of divine blessedness. 
^^If God, now, is always in this, as we are at 
times, then He is admirable ; if still more, then 
more admirable. But He is thus. Life, too, 
is His ; for the actuality of thought is life. He, 
however, is activity ; the activity returning into it- 
self is His most excellent and eternal life. We say, 
therefore, that God is aii eternal and the best lite/' 



ARISTOTLE S METAPHYSICS. 195 

All thinking obtains its worth from what is 
thought ; divine thinking can have only the best for 
its content^ and the best is itself. God, therefore, 
thinks Himself ; the energy of thinking and the ob- 
ject which is thought are one and the same ; in 
this consists His absolute perfection and blessedness. 

The world is the manifestation of thought, par- 
ticularized, multiplied, diversified in potentialities of 
matter which seek to attain reality. On one side 
we have pure activity. Absolute Being ; on the other 
potentiality, relative being and non-being, existing 
only in movement, the source of multitude and diver- 
sity. Thought is the actuality on which all depends, 
to which all relates, present to all as the soul to 
the body, unequally, diversely, according to all possi- 
ble differences. 

But how does God, buried in eternal contempla- 
tion of Himself, move the world ? How does the 
pure activity of divine thought enter into relation 
with nature, matter, potentiality ? The divine prin- 
ciple by its essence is separated from potentiality 
and the instability of movement ; it is the end to- 
ward which they strive. But whence come the 
striving, and desire, and movement ? How attribute 
to potentiality any reality ? 

Aristotle^s propositions concerning Deity contain 
the scientific foundation of theism in philosophy, bnt 
they do not escape the difficulty which is the final 
problem of all theistic speculation — a concept of God 
In which neither His personality nor essential dif- 
ference from the finite is lost. God is defined as the 



196 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

First Mover^ Himself unmoved^ immaterial^ free from all 
relation to time ; but it is difficult to conceive how 
that which is unmoved can be a moving cause, or 
how the immaterial can act upon a material universe. 
The difficulty is partly in our own thinking, for it 
is certain that a profound insight into the nature 
of the Divine lies at the basis of Aristotle's philos- 
ophy. His God is not mere abstract Being, or dead 
Identity, but living, eternal Energy. In this princi- 
ple Greek philosophy reached its culminating point — 
a principle that finds its justification and complement 
in the doctrines of Christianity. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



ARISTOTLE S PHYSICS. 

A RISTOTLE'S Philosophy of Nature includes its 
-^—^ metaphysics in so far as he investigates the 
problem of existence and the final causes that lie be- 
hind sensuous phenomena. This method is rejected 
by the empirical science of modern times^ which holds 
fast to the facts given in experience, but waives all 
inquiry into their speculative origin. Aristotle did not 
neglect the empirical, he sought to make facts the 
basis of every theory ; but his materials were scanty, 
and he worked without those aids for the advance and 
verification of science which exist to-day. What he 
accomplished was wonderful as a mere map of the 
sciences in the fourth century, B. 0. He stated in 
outline at least the questions which each science must 
answer, and through his very mistakes cleared the way 
for their solution. '^'^ It is half-way to knowledge when 
you know what you have to inquire. ^^ 

His philosophic view of nature was broad and com- 
prehensive. He traced a continuous thread of evolution 
throughout its ascending scale of life, from the inorganic 
to the organic, on to the animal, and lastly to man. 
He considered Nature both as final cause and as necessity. 
Material causes are only the indispensable condition 
of natural existence ; the true cause is its internal, im- 

197 



198 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

manent conformity to design^ which constitutes its final 
end. '' That which happens in nature happens always 
or nearly always the same^ but nothing which is through 
chance or accident reproduces itself. In the next place, 
that which contains a purpose conforms to this as well 
in its antecedents as in its consequences ; so that the 
nature of a thing may be inferred from its constitution, 
and conversely its constitution from its nature ; this 
follows from the idea of design. ^^ .... ^''Who- 
ever assumes an accidental origin of things denies, in 
so doing, nature and the natural order of things ; for 
the natural involves a principle in itself, by means of 
which a continual progress is made until the attainment 
of its end and aim.^^ The oak is produced from the 
acorn, the acorn from the oak ; plants produce seed, 
yet presuppose seed as their own origin. Nature as life 
is final cause ; the living being changes, but preserves 
itself through its own activity. 

Nature is twofold, matter and form, form being the 
end and aim on account of which all changes occur. 
The end is not always attained by reason of the obstacles 
offered by matter. This is the ground of chance and 
necessity. Nature works according to design, but in 
its realization produces much from mere necessity. The 
origin of necessity is sometimes explained ^^as if one 
should suppose that a house is through necessity for 
the reason that the heavy is placed underneath and 
the light on top, so that the foundations and the rocks 
are placed lowest and then the earthy matter, and 
lastly the wood above all because it is the lightest. ^"^ 
The material is necessary to the house, but the house 



Aristotle's physics. 199 

is not made for the material^ but for shelter and pro- 
tection. 

The necessary in nature is limited to matter and its 
movements ; the final cause is nature's reason and higher 
principle. Necessity is present in matter, but must be 
worked upon by the free activity of form in order to con- 
stitute natural existence. Chance is a mere exception 
thwarting the reason which guides and has ever guided 
the operations of nature. Nature as a whole is a gradual 
overcoming of matter through form, more and more 
perfect development of life ; what is first in itself is 
last according to temporal origin, the beginning is also 
the end. 

The universal conditions of natural existence are 
motion, space, time. Metaphysically, motion is defined 
as the realizing of that which a thing is potentially. 
Aristotle illustrates this by saying that metal is the 
possibility of a statue ; but the movement required in 
it to become a statue is not a movement of the metal 
as metal, but as this possibility itself. The merely 
potential whose activity is motion is not self-end, and 
is therefore imperfect. The mover in the movable is 
the final cause, the principle and aim of the motion. 
Activity and passivity are the same in movement, but 
differ in idea, in so far as one is an activity i7i the moved, 
the other an activity iy the mover. 

Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of motion : quan- 
titative motion, or increase and decrease ; qualitative 
motion, or alteration ; and spatial motion, or change of 
place, to which the other two if examined closely may 
be traced back. Quantitative motion, or increase and 



200 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

decrease^ presupposes partly a qualitative change, partly 
a change of place. Qualitative change^ or alteration^ 
is possible only through spatial contact^ for the passive 
must be touched by the active. Beginning and ending, 
as regards the individual thing, coincide partly with 
combination and separation, partly with the transforma- 
tion of substances, both of which depend on spatial 
motion. Only this definite thing begins and ends ; 
absolute beginning and ending would leave no substrate 
of motion or change. Becoming presupposes and is 
preceded by being, and must be conceived as a transi- 
tion from the possible to the real, as development. 

The concept of space with Aristotle js neither the 
form nor the limit of individual bodies ; if it were, 
bodies would move ivitli space, and not in space. It 
is not the matter of bodies, nor the distance between 
them, but rather the boundary of the enclosing body 
against the enclosed. ''^ There is nothing external to 
the universe, all is contained in the heavens ; for the 
world is the whole. But place is not the heavens ; 
it is only the outermost limits at rest which touch 
moving bodies. Therefore the earth is in water^ the 
water in air, the air in ether, the ether in the 
heavens."^ 

Time is not motion although related to it ; motion 
is sometimes slower, sometimes swifter, while time is 
ever the same. Whatever is determined by the now 
we call time ; it is the measure of movement in re- 
spect of the before and after. It is a continuous as 
well as a discrete quantity, continuous in so far as 
this present now is the same as in the past; discrete 



Aristotle's physics. 201 

in so far as its being changes every moment. The 
past and the future are different from the now, but 
it is their limit; it is both their union and their 
distinction. 

Aristotle maintains that motion is without begin- 
ning or end, and from this concept derives his theory 
of the universe. The absolute motion is circular, 
without antithesis, uniform, self-complete. God moves 
the world from its circumference, acting directly on 
the firmament of the fixed stars. Each motion of a 
surrounding sphere is communicated to those included 
in it, but the degree of perfection varies as they are 
more or less removed from the direct influence of the 
divine Mover. 

Aristotle calls the sphere of the fixed stars '^^the 
first Heaven. '^ As nearest God it consists not of per- 
ishable matter, but of imperishable ether, the divine 
element in creation. Its motion is the pure circular, 
unbecome, unchangeable, that from which all other 
motion springs. Touched by no earthly trouble, com- 
prehending all space and all time, the fixed stars 
rejoice as the most perfect of created beings. 

Lower than the stars is the sphere of the planets, 
including the sun and the moon. Lowest of all is 
the earth, the farthest removed from God and there- 
fore the most imperfect of created things. This is 
the sphere of movement in a straight line, upward, 
downward, as the elements are heavy or light. Earth, 
water, air, fire, all pass over into each other and form 
one whole, a circle whose parts ceaselessly change but 
the law of whose process is uniform and eternal, ex- 



202 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

liibiting thus a copy of heaven. '^ That which is 
changed in things, is only the sensuously perceivable ; 
and the forms and shapes^ as well as the properties, 
are not changed ; they originate and vanish in things, 
but do not change/" 

Life consists in the power of self-motion, in the 
capability of a being to produce a change in itself 
even though that change be limited to" growth, nour- 
ishment and decay. That which is moved in the 
living is its body, or matter ; that which moves is its 
soul, or form, called by Aristotle entelechy. He dis- 
tinguishes in theory at least, between entelechy and 
energy ; entelechy contains the end (telos) of a pro- 
cess, and is not only form, but principle of motion 
and final end. The body exists for the soul, and the 
soul is the true explanation of body. Soul gives 
reality to body just as vision gives reality to the eye. 
^MVe must no more ask whether the soul and the 
body are one than ask whether the wax and the fig- 
ure impressed upon it are one, or generally inquire 
whether the material and that of which it is the ma- 
terial, are one.'" Only through the soul can we com- 
prehend the body; the mental functions, although the 
outcome of the physical, are the presupposition on 
which they rest. 

As the entelechy of body, soul is its perfect reali- 
zation ; but this realization is not necessarily explicit, 
it may be implicit. Aristotle, therefore, defines soul as 
the ^'^ first entelechy"" of body. He recognizes three 
stages in its development, the vegetative, the sensitive, 
and the intellectual soul, corresponding to the life of 



Aristotle's physics. 203 

plants, of animals, and of man. His psychology 
rests upon the biological conception of a progressive 
development of life on earth. Man is the end of cre- 
ation, the perfect development of all that is contained 
implicitly and imperfectly in lower forms of existence. 
The inorganic precedes the organic ; the functions of 
nutrition are the basis for the faculties of sense ; the 
exercise of the senses is necessary to provide material 
for thought. 

We must not neglect the distinction between what 
is prior in time and prior in order of thought. Aristotle 
repeatedly asserts that as the idea of reality precedes that 
of potentiality, the more developed form stands first in 
thought and real being, although the lower form has the 
priority in time. Soul is the unity which embraces life, 
sense-perception, and thought ; it is the true universal, 
containing within itself the individual and the particular. 
Tt is not abstract but concrete unity, developing and an- 
nulling its own multiplicity, as vegetative, sensitive, in- 
tellectual, reaching a higher and higher synthesis in its 
progress towards perfect realization. 

Among living beings plants are the lowest. The 
work of the vegetative soul is reduced to two functions, 
nutrition and reproduction. It is related to matter in 
a material manner, employing it as nutriment ; it has 
nothing to do with the form of the object as in 
sensation. '' The reaction of the life of the plant upon 
the external world is not sufficient to constitute a 
fixed, abiding individuality,^' says Dr. Wm. T. Harris, 
in an article on ^^ Educational Psychology,'' published 
in The Journal of Speculative Philosojphy: ''With 



204 A STUDY OP GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

each accretion there is some change of particular indi- 
viduality. Every growth to a plant is by the sprouting 
out of new individuals — new plants — a ceaseless multipli- 
cation of individuals^ and not the preservation of the 
same individual. The species is preserved^ but not the 
particular individual. Each limb^ each twig, .even each 
new leaf is a new individual, which grows out from the 
previous growth as the first sprout grew from the seed. 
Each part furnishes a soil for the next. When a plant no 
longer sends out new individuals, we say it is dead. The 
life of the plant is only a life of nutrition. ^^ 

We reach a higher grade of life in the faculties of 
sense which first constitute the animal. Sense receives 
the form of things and is so far passive, acted upon from 
without ; but to produce sensation it must in its turn act 
upon and assimilate this passive content. '' The sensible 
object is not so much the condition as the occasion of 
sensation, ^^ says Mr. Wallace, in his introduction to 
Aristotle^s De Anima. ^^ Perception is something internal 
and immanent, only called out into action by an external 
object. ... To Aristotle, therefore, we may say that 
matter is not a permanent possibility of sensation realized 
in perception but sensation a permanent possibility of 
perceiving what as perceived is the realization of the 
sensitive capacities. ^^ 

Aristotle explains the general character of sense- 
perception by comparing it to the manner in which wax 
receives the form or impress of the seal, but not its 
material, the iron or the gold of which it is composed. 
This does not mean that the soul like wax has no form or 
activity in itself ; it is simply a metaphor to illustrate 



Aristotle's physics. 205 

that what is sensuously perceived in so far as it is form 
is the object as universal, not as individual. 

Touch is the most common of the perceptive faculties: 
it is the sense which all others presuppose. Touch and 
taste contribute only to our animal existence ; sight and 
hearing are directed to our spiritual development. The 
heart rather than the brain is the seat of sensation. 
This evidently means that it is through the heart that 
the soul compares and distinguishes sensations ; to inter- 
pret it otherwise would contradict Aristotle's theory of 
the relation between mind and matter. 

Imagination ( Vorstellung), the picture-making faculty, 
is closely connected with sensation. But its testimony is 
less trustworthy. As a copy of early impressions we call 
it remembrance ; as their conscious reproduction we call 
it re-collection. Ee-collection implies reason, and be- 
longs to man alone. The laws according to which the 
mind works in this process are those of the Association 
of Ideas, which is one of Aristotle's contributions to 
mental science. 

Man includes in himself the vegetative soul of the 
plant, the sensitive soul of the animal, and the cogni- 
tive soul, or the power of thinking, which distin- 
guishes him from all other beings. The soul in itself 
is the divine in man, independent of bodily conditions, 
immaterial, self-subsistent. But so far as it is related 
to sensation it is passively determined, and is in a 
process of development. Aristotle, therefore, distin- 
guishes between what he calls the active and the pas- 
sive reason, a distinction whose interpretation has 
given rise to wide divergencies of view among Aris- 



206 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

totelian scholars. On one hand he could not over- 
look the gradual development of spiritual activities; 
on the other he could not think pure reason as 
connected in any way with matter. This antithesis 
in the soul of man he sought to explain and recon- 
cile by means of his theory^ and considering the 
difficulty of the problem it is little wonder that his 
meaning is sometimes obscure. 

Eeason contains within itself potentially the gen- 
eral concepts by which a world of sense becomes a 
world for intellect ; it needs only to develop these 
from itself in order to apply them to experience. 
'' The process of thought is like that of writing on 
a writing-tablet on which nothing is yet actually 
written/^ says Aristotle. This does not mean that 
thought is the product of the external world, or 
that it is like a writing-tablet in passivity, since the 
activity of thought is not external to but within 
itself. The figure must not be taken in its whole 
extent ; interpreted in the light of other passages it 
implies that the soul has a content only in so far 
as it is really thought, that the potentiality within 
it must become actuality through its own activity. 

^•^Now in the case of immaterial objects, the sub- 
ject thinking and the object thought are one and 
the same,^^ says Aristotle; '^^just as speculative science 
is equivalent to the objects and ideas of speculative 
knowledge. In the case, on the contrary, of those 
objects which are imbedded in matter, each of the 
ideas of reason is present, if only potentially and 
implicitly. And thus reason is not to be regarded 



ARISTOTLE^S PHYSICS. 207 

as belonging to and governed by the things of sense, 
but the world of thought must be regarded as be- 
longing to and regulated by reason. 

This reason is^ on the one hand, of 
such a character as to lecome all things ; on the 
other hand of such a nature as to create all things, 
acting then much in the same way as some positive 
quality, such as for instance light ; for light also in 
a way creates actual out of potential color. 
And thus, though knowledge as an actually realized 
condition is identical with its object, this knowledge 
as a potential capacity is in time prior to the indi- 
vidual, though in universal existence it is not even 

in time thus prior to actual thought 

This phase of reason is separated from and uncom- 
pounded with material conditions, and, being in its 
essential character fully and actually realized, it is 
not subject to impressions from without, for the crea- 
tive is in every case more knowable than the pas- 
sive, just as the originating principle is superior to , 
the matter which it forms. '^ 

^^ The first key to understanding Aristotle is to know 
that dunamis and eiiergeia are relative terms, ^^ says 
Mr. Wallace, '^ and that what is an energeia from one 
aspect may be a dunamis from another. And thus 
Aristotle may perfectly well say that the different forms 
of soul must exist in man potentially before they can 
do so actually and yet hold that it is in potential forms 
that reason as an actual or rather as an actualizing 
faculty is present originally in man."*^ 

Aristotle's theory of knowledge determines directly 



208 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

his theory of practical activity. What in the one sphere 
is truth and error^ is in the other good and evil ; ^^it 
is when the sense perceives something as pleasant or 
painful that the mind affirms or denies it^ that it pur- 
sues it or avoids it.^^ 

Desire arises from sensuous feeling, but assumes a 
different character according as it is or is not dominated 
by reason. So far as desire is influenced by reason, 
reason is practical, and desire itself becomes will. 
Between the two stands the human soul with freedom 
of choice, spontaneity of action. The difficulties that 
lie in the concept of the freedom of the will did not 
exist for Aristotle. He looked upon reason as the 
basis of the moral and the intellectual life. Man even 
in yielding to his animal nature is conscious of a 
higher ideal ; this consciousness presupposes reason 
whose essence is freedom. 

Aristotle's theory of reason has puzzled both ancient 
and modern commentators. The active or the creative 
reason transcends the body, is eternal and imperishable, 
unaffected by matter, prior and subsequent to the indi- 
vidual mind ; the passive or receptive reason is necessary 
to individual thought, but is subjected to suffering and 
change, and therefore perishable. Where is the personal 
self to be found, in the active or in the passive reason ? 
Did Aristotle believe in the immortality of the indi- 
vidual soul ? 

Hegel thinks that Aristotle reached the highest point 
of speculation in identifying the subjective and the 
objective present in active or creative reason, but sep- 
arated in finite things and finite mind where reason is 



aeistotle's physics. 209 

only a potentiality. As this unity of subjective and 
objective^ reason must be self-consciousness. It is the 
true totality^ the activity which is both in itself and for 
itself, the thinking of thinking, that which constitutes 
the nature of Absolute Spirit, and in so far as we 
participate in it it is the consciousness of God, perfect 
blessedness. 



CHAPTEE XXVIII. 



ARISTOTLE S ETHICS. 

WHAT is the chief good for man ? — is the question 
asked and answered by Aristotle in his Ethics. 
As physical things strive unconsciously towards com- 
pletion and perfection^ man consciously seeks the good 
attainable in life. This good^, according to Aristotle, 
is happiness, which can only be realized in the harmo- 
nious activity and development of his especial nature. 
It diflEers from physical good in so far as it exists not 
only /or man, but in man. The end of the physical is 
an end not recognized by the physical itself, the end of 
the moral is consciously recognized and realized. Aris- 
totle, in his Ethics, views the final cause subjectively 
as happiness ; objectively, as the morally beautiful. 

The activity which results in happiness belongs to 
man as man, not as animal ; it is the activity of reason. 
It is not mere sensuous enjoyment, but the chief human 
good, containing in itself all that lends to life its highest 
worth. It is not selfish except in that higher sense of 
the word where egoism becomes altruism, and genuine 
self-culture humanitarianism. It even rises above the 
practical sphere of morality, in its highest realization ; 
it is that for which morality exists, the divine in man, 
a state of peace and blessedness, the summit of human 
perfection. 

210 



Aristotle's ethics. 211 

Aristotle views happiness from the external as well 
as the internal point of view. Ideal happiness is the 
attainment of a state wherein man would live above 
the world;, participating in the blessed life of God. But 
moral activity is human activity^ the activity of beings 
limited by time and space. Aristotle, therefore, regards 
happiness as partly dependent on certain external 
advantages, health, moderate means, friends, children, 
etc. He was led to this second view by his empirical 
tendencies and the facts to which universal experience 
seemed to testify. *' The work of man is a conscious 
and active life of the soul in accordance with reason, '^ 
he says : ^'^this is the virtuous and therefore the happy 
life.'' Happiness implies virtue and a life favorably 
situated as regards external fortune ; but it depends on 
mental rather than on bodily conditions, and is an 
activity or energeia as distinguished from dunamis or 
potentiality. 

^' No conception equally plastic with energeia, and at 
all answering to it, can be found in modern thought," 
says Sir Alexander Grant. " Energy, as we use the word, 
does not convey the meaning fully ; nor does actuality, 
which gives more nearly its philosophical import. To 
comprehend energeia, we must study its various appli- 
cations in Aristotle's system of philosophy. It is every- 
where the correlative and opposite of dunamis.'^ 

We have seen its significance in physics ; in ethics, 
it is not only identified with happiness, but expresses 
moral action and the development of the moral powers. 
The moral dunamis, or potentiality, differs from the 
physical ; it is not restricted to one of two contraries 



212 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

which it must produce, as the capacity of heat pro- 
duces heat alone, but it can develop into either con- 
trary and is therefore freed from physical necessity. 
The moral dunmnis is not a gift of nature inde- 
pendent of any effort on our part ; it does not exist 
previous to moral action. It arises gradually through 
exercise ; good acts produce good habits^, and con- 
versely good habits produce good acts. 

If man had a capacity for virtue as irresistible as 
the force which makes the stone fall to the ground, 
he would have no choice, no responsibility, no moral- 
ity. All men are born with certain capacities of 
growth, of feeling pleasure and pain; but to acquire 
the disposition of virtue we must first of all be virtu- 
ous. This seems paradoxical, but Aristotle compares 
the acts by which we acquire virtue to the first at- 
tempts of the artist in the acquirement of his art. 
They are merely external and lack morality until 
they express internal and developed character. 

Man is a free and intelligent agent, according to 
Aristotle, accountable for his good or evil action. 
The basis of morality is found in natural tendencies, 
but morality itself consists in their transformation 
through rational insight and will. Aristotle reversed 
the proposition of Socrates that no one is voluntarily 
bad, finding in the will itself the decisive proof of 
moral choice and responsibility. Virtue is an endur- 
ing quality of the will acquired only through con- 
tinued virtuous activity ; that which was first a matter 
of free choice becomes a permanent element of charac- 
ter. 



ARISTOTLE'S ETHICS. 213 

If we ask what quality of the will is virtuous^ Aris- 
totle answers that moral activity must observe the just 
mean between the too-much and the too-little^ must 
avoid both excess and defect. This thought is essen- 
tially Greek ; it is the law of moderation applied to 
moral action. What is too much for one man may 
not be for another ; the virtue of a free man is one 
thing, that of a slave another. The external circum- 
stances and moral problems of individuals differ and 
thus determine their virtue. Whenever there is uncer- 
tainty the mean to be observed is decided by practical 
insight. 

Virtue is a certain harmony of life. In so far as it 
is connected with the control of the passions it is 
moral ; in so far as it is connected with the order of 
the intellect it is intellectual, or diancetic. Moral 
virtue includes courage, temperance, generosity, cour- 
tesy, loftiness of spirit, and chief of all, justice. 
Courage is the mean between rashness and cowardice ; 
temperance is the mean between sensuality and as- 
ceticism ; generosity is the mean between avarice and 
prodigality. Justice, finally, is the mean between the 
doing of wrong and the suffering of wrong, between 
selfishness and weakness. Upon justice rests the 
maintenance of the community. It is therefore the 
connecting link between ethics and politics. All the 
passions tend toward excess, but guided by reason 
they are the springs that move the world, the source 
of human greatness. 

Intellectual virtue is prudence, good sense, practical 
wisdom. It is our duty to acquire knowledge that 



214 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

knowledge may guide and mould our conduct. Virtue 
and insight condition each other; one gives to the 
will the direction towards the good^ the other defines 
the good. In intellectual, or diancetic virtue, ethics 
finds its complement in philosophy. 

Aristotle^s theory that the distinction between virtue 
and vice is merely quantitative has been greatly criti- 
cized in modern times. It contains truth, and expresses 
the Greek idea of virtue as beauty in action. But it 
leaves unexpressed the law of right binding on the 
moral subject, the conception of duty. ^^To some ex- 
tent this is supplied by Aristotle^s doctrine of the 
telos/' say Sir Alexander Grant, ^^ which raises a beau- 
tiful action into something absolutely desirable, and 
makes it the end of our being. ^^ 

Another point that has been frequently discussed in 
Aristotle^s ethics is the relation of happiness to self- 
consciousness. The idea of consciousness is implied in 
the ethical application of energeia ; energeia exists not 
only for the mind, but in the mind ; it is not only 
life, but the sense of life ; not only thought, but the 
consciousness of thought. Nevertheless we must not 
identify energeia as applied to the mind with self-con- 
sciousness ; one is an ancient, the other a modern term, 
implying in part but not wholly the same idea. 

Aristotle regards the chief good as existing in man 
and for man, in the development and fruition of his 
own powers. Let him ^^ energize, ^^ '^ actualize ^^ that 
which is potential or latent in his own nature, and 
the result is happiness. Virtue must be active, not 
passive ; positive, not negative. It is the doing of 



Aristotle's ethics. 215 

right, which is very different from the not doing of 
wrong. 

The general striving for pleasure is the impulse of life 
itself. The nobler an activity the higher the pleasure 
united with its exercise ; the source of the purest enjoy- 
ment is thinking and moral action. Pleasure is not to be 
the aim and motive of our acts, but only a result. It is 
associated with virtue in so far as virtuous activity is self- 
satisfaction. True self-love consists in striving to be in- 
telligent, loving, helpful, in the highest sense. It is 
better to suffer than to do injustice, because in one case 
the injury is external, in the other internal. Even life 
itself is but the means to a higher end when it is sacri- 
ficed by the brave man for friends and country. 

Pleasure differs from happiness in so far as happiness 
is essentially moral and ideal, extending over an entire 
life ; whereas reality and brevity of duration belong to 
pleasure. The one is a blessed state of the internal life ; 
the other depends on favorable external circumstances. 
But in so far as pleasure consists in the exercise of the 
highest faculties it is identical with happiness. For hap- 
piness is not a means to something else but the end in 
itself, the morally worthy in which the mind rests self- 
satisfied. 

In his classification of the virtues, Aristotle omits the 
Christian graces, — charity, humility, self-renunciation. 
He separates ethics from religion, and does not consider 
man's relation to God except so far as it is included in 
man's relation to his fellow-men. The highest virtue is 
dianoetic rather than ethical, an excellence of the intel- 
lect to which the doctrine of the mean is inapplicable. 



216 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Wisdom is what is best and noblest^ and its attainment is 
the supreme degree of felicity. 

Friendship is treated by Aristotle as ^^ either a virtue, 
or closely connected with virtue ; '^ it is the middle term 
which leads from ethics to politics. ''^Now to the solitary 
individual life is grievous ; for it is not easy to maintain 
a glow of mind by one^s self, but in company with some 
one else, and in relation to others, this is easier/^ A 
friend intensifies the sense of personal existence, the 
vitality on which happiness depends. Friendship is the 
bond that unites man to man, not merely externally, as 
community of right, but in the innermost essence of his 
being. True friendship is wholly disinterested. It 
widens the morality of the individual, but is an associ- 
ation limited by accidental personal relations. The state 
embraces a larger circle, and here first in its laws and in- 
stitutions morality finds a permanent basis ; ethics rests 
upon politics. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

ARISTOTLE'S POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY OF ART, ETC. 

THE state, according to Aristotle, is as essential to 
man^s existence as the act of birth; without it 
his potentialities as a spiritual being could not be real- 
ized. He defines man as a political animal, destined 
by nature for association with others. The state is the 
condition of moral perfection ; it is the moral whole 
whose basis is the family, and though later in temp- 
oral development is in itself prior to the family and 
the individual, as the whole is prior to the part. Cut 
off from the social community man is either ^^a god 
or a beast.'' It is the state that reveals and actualizes 
his own better self; it is at once the back-ground and 
the result of his special activities. Politics, therefore, 
is the indispensable presupposition and completion of 
ethics. 

The aim of the state is not merely the physical 
welfare of its citizens, but their virtuous activity and 
consequent happiness. The state comprehends in itself 
all moral aims ; it must secure by its institutions the 
best life for man, and that life is best which unites 
theoretical and practical activity. 

According to temporal origin the family must pre- 
cede the state as the condition of its beginning. The 
family exists in a threefold relation, the relation of hus- 

•217 



218 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

band to wife, of parents to children, of master to slave. 
Aristotle treats marriage as a moral relation, but looks 
upon the wife as rightly dependent upon her husband, 
because woman is inferior to man in strength of char- 
acter. That is, he regards woman as passive rather 
than active, and therefore inferior to man. She is so 
far free that she has her own domestic sphere in which 
the husband must not interfere. 

A relation of greater dependence is that of children 
to parents ; one of complete dependence is that of slave 
to master. Aristotle regards slavery as necessary in 
order to give the master leisure to lead a noble life. 
He would base it on superiority of virtue alone. It is 
fitting that those who are capable of spiritual activity 
should command and guide those who are not ; the 
relation is beneficial both to master and slave. Aris- 
totle defends slavery, but would change its character. 
Underlying his sanction of it as an institution is the 
idea that he who is by nature a slave will be enslaved. 
In order to be free man must develop his own internal 
activity and make himself independent of everything 
external. The political slave may be the freeman. 
Aristotle overlooks the truth that to hold one in bond- 
age is not to encourage the desire for spiritual growth 
and excellence. He held that a slave might earn his 
freedom by showing himself worthy of it, and went so 
far practically as to free his own slaves. But he re- 
garded society without slavery something as we should 
view it to-day without domestic service. The Greek 
thought did not recognize the essential freedom of man 
as man. It made clear one side of the truth, the ob- 



aeistotle's politics, etc. 219 

jective freedom of the state, but neglected the other, 
the subjective freedom of the individual. 

Aristotle had the Greek prejudice against trade and 
traffic. He draws a sharp distinction between neces- 
sary and noble work. He asserts that commodities are 
made for man, not man for the multiplication of com- 
modities. He undervalues work for pecuniary gain, and 
does not believe in lending money on interest. 

Aristotle does not share Plato's communistic views. 
His arguments are nearly the same as those of modern 
opponents. The state like the body of man has many 
members and cannot be reduced to an unmeaning unity, 
a levelling process that in destroying difference would 
destroy the organism. Communism would impoverish 
human life, render impossible those virtues which con- 
sist in a right relation to possessions, rob men of oppor- 
tunities of virtuous action, and diminish happiness. 

Aristotle recognizes not only the industrial value of 
the institution of private property, but the part it plays 
in the subjugation of nature by man. Considered as 
representing this subjugation by free individuals, differ- 
ing in gifts and capacities, or as a means for their ful- 
fillment of social functions, property must be unequal. 
Men cannot have all things in common, but they can 
have more in common than at present. The instinct of 
ownership is implanted by nature, but should be tem- 
pered by liberality and benevolence. The legislator 
should seek to inspire the love which is the fulfilling 
of the law, but should not take away the freedom of 
virtuous action on the part of the individual. Prof. 
Jowett has thrown the ancient thought into this modern 



220 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

form: ^'More good will he done by awakening in rich 
men a sense of the duties of property than by the viola- 
tion of its rights/^ 

^^ We see in this contrast to Platonic Socialism/^ says 
Zeller, ^^not only the practical sense of Aristotle, his 
clear glance open to the conditions and laws of reality, 
his horror of all ethical one-sidedness, his deep under- 
standing of human nature and the life of the state, 
but also, as in Plato, the connection of his political 
views with the metaphysical basis of his system/^ Plato 
would have cancelled private possessions and destroyed 
individual interests, because he recognized the Idea 
only in the Universal, the State as the substance of the 
Individual ; Aristotle, on the other hand, regarded the 
Individual as essentially the Universal. The activity 
which seeks the welfare of the state must proceed from 
individuals and their free will ; only from within through 
culture and education, not from without through com- 
pulsory institutions of Socialism or Communism, can 
the life of the state be maintained and preserved. 

Aristotle^s ideal state is an organism of limited size, 
a body of men not too large nor too small, able to rule 
and be ruled with a view to the common advantage, 
the realization of the highest type of life. Every citizen 
is to be a landowner, but no great accumulation of 
property is to be allowed. The essential aim of the 
state is the moral perfection of its citizens, whose result 
is happiness. Those who contribute to this most have 
the justest claim to political influence. With the Greek 
scorn of manual labor and trade, agriculturists, artisans, 
and tradesmen are excluded from the rights and duties 



Aristotle's politics^, etc. 221 

of citizenship. The attainment of virtue and happiness 
by the higher natures has its accompanying shadow ; 
it implies the existence and recognized inferiority of 
the lower. Only the few inherit the earthy but the 
condition of this inheritance with Aristotle is an active 
life of moral and intellectual greatness. So far as any 
individual or class of citizens contribute to the existence 
of the state and the common good of the whole, just 
so far should their influence extend. The few are to 
elevate the masses, and develop in all the best type of 
life of which they are capable. 

The state is both an outcome of the past and a re- 
flection of the present ; its constitution is its mode of 
life, varying with varying circumstances, but exerting 
always an ethical influence over character. The hap- 
piness which is its aim consists essentially in the 
virtue of its citizens, a work of conscious activity, of 
free-will and of insight. The state must therefore 
educate its citizens, men must be formed who know 
how to exercise the virtue of the free. Education 
must develop the whole man, physical, intellectual, 
moral. Its aim should be spiritual rather than 
material, culture rather than utility; the development 
of the lower nature should be adjusted to the ultimate 
development of that which is highest in man. Educa- 
tion must tend not only towards practical activity, but 
to a right use of leisure. Some things are to be 
learned for practical activity ; others on their own 
account. The one has an aim outside of itself in 
something to be attained ; the other in its exercise is 
a beautiful and satisfying activity. To be always seek- 



222 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ing the useful does not become free and exalted 
minds. Both Plato and Aristotle believe that school 
is the place for inspiring a love of all that is noble 
and beautiful rather than for pouring in knowledge. 
Let one first learn to love what is right, then learn 
why it is right. Aristotle declines to give a direct 
training to the intellect until he has first laid a 
solid foundation of character. He postpones the ap- 
peal to reason that it may be the more effectual 
when it is made. To be educated in the best sense 
is to be rational. 

Greek education differed from modern education 
in placing a higher value on a general aptitude of 
knowing, an interest in human relations generally, 
than on special acquirements which may be one- 
sided and tend towards work in a groove. Gymnas- 
tics, music and literature were its chief branches. 
The aim of gymnastics with Aristotle was not so much 
technical skill as to lay the foundations of a har- 
moniously developed being, healthy and undisturbed 
in body and mind. So, too, with music ; its chief 
value for Aristotle was its power to influence the 
character and mould it to virtue. Music inclines the 
child through his emotions to take pleasure in the 
good, and to reject what is evil, disposing the soul 
to virtue. For we are not really virtuous, according 
to Aristotle, until we love virtue for its own sake. 

The high place assigned to music by the Greeks 
is one that we can only partly comprehend ; to their 
thought it produced an elevation of the soul by 
harmonizing all its discordant elements. Through its 



aeistotle's politics, etc. 223 

influence man was lifted above himself, and '' caught 
up into a sort of heaven/^ There must have been 
in Greek music some spiritual union of mind and 
sense which found a way to the inner place of the 
soul, experienced by us only in rare moments. 

The aim of Aristotle^s education is to develop a 
many-sided moral being, capable of fulfilling the 
duties of the perfect citizen, and of playing differ- 
ent parts, as soldier, statesman, judge, philosopher. 
Not wise laws, but wise men, are the basis of his 
state; men who will always prefer virtue to wealth 
and distinction. The best state is a brotherhood of 
men, limited it is true to a few chosen ones of the 
Greek race, but animated by the noble purpose of 
living and helping each other to live a life of vir- 
tue. Man must join with his fellows and live for 
their welfare as well as his own in order to realize 
himself as a spiritual being. Society must elevate 
and ennoble, not warp and distort the individual. 
For this the state exists, and not for empire or 
wealth. Its end is spiritual, not material. Men are 
always losing sight of the true and the good in the 
pursuit of material interest. To correct this tend- 
ency, ethics must be infused into politics. The 
ultimate identification of the two by the greatest 
thinkers of Greece, is a truth to be constantly en- 
forced. 

PHILOSOPHY OF AKT. 

Aristotle^s theory of art is found in his Poetics, a 
little work devoted chiefly to the discussion of trag- 
edy. He places art as a means of spiritual enjoyment 



224 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

in the most intimate connection with spiritual devel- 
opment. The aim of tragedy is to purify the emo- 
tions of pity and fear^ to make men see life in its 
true light. Purification (Katharsis) is a quieting pro- 
duced through excitement^ a homoeopathic healing. 
How is it effected ? Not as in real life^ where the 
single thing ruled by accident is placed before the 
eyes^ but by showing us the universal in the single, 
the common human lot guided by the law of eternal 
justice. The fate in tragedy must be self-deserved ; a 
work of art must disclose the unchanging order of the 
moral universe. In this lies its power to purge the 
mind of the sensuous, '' enabling us to see reality 
truly and correctly/^ comprehending its spiritual pur- 
pose and significance. 

THE PERIPATETIC SCHOOL. 

Theophrastus, Eudemus and Strabo are the most 
famous leaders of the school of Aristotle, called the 
Peripatetic. Theophrastus was his immediate suc- 
cessor, but seems like the others to have been little 
more than a commentator. There was so much to 
expound and elaborate in Aristotle^s system of thought 
that we find in his disciples a lack of independent re- 
search and originality. Their work, therefore, is of but 
slight importance. The early loss of Aristotle^s writ- 
ings may have led to their misinterpretation; various 
theories, inconsistent with their spirit, were handed 
down traditionally. 



CHAPTEK XXX. 

TEAKSITION TO THE POST-ARISTOTELIAK PHILOSOPHY. 

AKISTOTLE was both a scientist and a philoso- 
pher. He therefore sought in his system of 
thought to unite the most comprehensive observation 
with the dialectic development of the concept. The 
school of Socrates and Plato neglected the outer world 
of experience for the inner world of thought ; Aris- 
totle recognized that thought is not independent of 
experience^ although it is that only which is known^ 
the essence, the form of things, their immanent idea. 
His system thus completes and contradicts the Platonic, 
as Zeller observes ; completes it in so far as he main- 
tains the reality of thought alone, contradicts it in so 
far as he places its activity within and not outside of 
matter. Matter is the not-yet-being of form, the poten- 
tial ; form is the actual. The relation between the two 
is positive instead of negative, producing motion and 
life, becoming and change. The presupposition of 
this relation is pure form, a self-mover, self-think- 
ing Reason. 

Greek philosophy reaches its culminating point in 
the clear enunciation of this principle, although it 
is not able to escape dualism in its application. How 
is matter, the potential, derived from and related to 
pure form, pure actuality, pure thought ? How can 

^25 



326 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the circle of the known world of experience be 
explained and comprehended as an organization of 
self-thinking thought ? This is the problem. 

The idea with Aristotle is thought as the unity of the 
subjective and the objective, the true universal. But it 
is applied dogmatically in the systems of Stoicism and 
Epicureanism ; sceptically, in Scepticism and the New 
Academy; mystically, in JSTeo-Platonism. All these 
systems neglect the objective and emphasize the sub- 
jective. The essential being of man, according to 
Aristotle, is reason ; its highest activity is pure thinking, 
which turns away from everything external to employ 
itself with concepts alone. It is only a step farther in 
this direction to turn away entirely from the external 
world to the internal world of consciousness. This step 
was taken by the post- Aristotelians ; with all their con- 
tradictions they agree in this common feature of abstract 
subjectivity. The Stoics, the Epicureans, and the 
Sceptics all agree in preferring the practical to the 
theoretical interest, and in seeking its satisfaction in 
mental serenity and independence. 

The philosophy of Greece was closely connected with 
her political life. Nothing remained after her loss of 
independence but to oppose one^s inner self to her hope- 
less condition and seek contentment in the recesses of the 
soul. The need of the time was not so much theoretical 
knowing as moral strength. The apathy of the Stoics, 
the self -contentment of the Epicureans, the equanimity 
of the Sceptics, reflected the spirit of the age. When, 
too, the barriers were broken down that separated the 
West from the Bast, the Greek from the barbarian, man 



POST-AEISTOTELIAK PHILOSOPHY. 227 

became conscious that moral life is a relation of man to 
man independent of nationality, and this consciousness 
found expression in philosophy. 

The deepening of self-consciousness, characteristic of 
post- Aristotelian philosophy, is expressed one-sidedly as 
the abstract universality of thought — Stoicism, or as the 
abstract individuality of feeling — Epicureanism, or as the 
negation of this one-sidedness — Scepticism. Stoicism 
seeks happiness by suppressing all selfish feelings and 
inclinations, subordinating the individual to the law of 
the whole ; Epicureanism, in the absence of suffering, 
painlessness, imperturbability. Finally, Scepticism con- 
cludes from the contradictory systems of thought that 
knowledge is impossible, and deduces from this conclu- 
sion serene indifference towards everything. All three 
strive towards the same end, though in different ways ; 
the internal freedom of self-consciousness, imperturba- 
bility of spirit, abstract independence. 

Transplanted to Roman soil in the first century B.C., 
Greek philosophy, especially Stoicism and Epicureanism, 
found many adherents. Touched by the Roman breadth 
of empire and the Roman spirit, it became eclectic in 
character, and wholly practical in its aim. The Roman 
world was the world of abstraction, crushing out and 
deadening all spiritual beauty and spontaneity. Hence 
its need in philosophy to tear itself loose from the external 
and find within the soul the freedom it could not other- 
wise enjoy. 

In Alexandria, the West and the East touched each 
other in deep and lasting contact. Here Greek phil- 
osophy came to a close in Neo-Platonism — a final attempt 



328 A STUDY 01^ GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

to sol 76 the dualism between the subjective and the ob- 
jective. Neo-Platonism with all its differences bears the 
same character of subjectivity as the earlier systems of 
Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism. Its great aim 
is to mediate between God and man, to exalt the indivi- 
dual subject to the Absolute Subject, not through knowl- 
edge, but through ecstasy — a divine illumination of the 
soul. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

STOICISM. 

rVENO, the founder of the Stoic School, was born 
^^ about the year 340 B. C, in Citium, a town of Asia 
Minor. His father was a Phoenician merchant who in 
his frequent trips to Athens collected a large number 
of the writings of the philosophers, especially of the 
Socratists. Their perusal awakened in Zeno the love of 
knowledge, and the resolve to dedicate his life to its 
pursuit. It is said that the loss of his worldly goods in 
a shipwreck turned his activity from commerce to phil- 
osophy, but his character and life prove that inward 
inclination had more to do with it than outward acci- 
dent. He removed to Athens and received instruction 
from Xenocrates, from Crates the Cynic, from Stilpo 
the Megaric, and from Polemo the Academic. After 
studying and listening to others for twenty years he 
opened a school of his own in the Btoa Poecile, a por- 
tico adorned with paintings of Polygnotus, whence the 
name ''^Philosophers of the Porch,''" or '^'^ Stoics/' He 
taught here for fifty-eight years, and then in undis- 
turbed health ended his life voluntarily. He was greatly 
honored by the Athenians for his simplicity and tem- 
perance and the strictness of his morality. On the 
monument to his memory, erected at public expense, was 
this inscription : ^'^His life corresponded to his precepts."^ 

229 



230 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Zeno^s successor in the Stoa was Cleanthes^ a native 
of Asia Minor. When summoned by the Athenian court 
to give an account of his manner of life, he testified 
that he carried water for a gardener nightly that he 
might devote his days to the study of philosophy. 

Cleanthes was followed by Chrysippus of Cilicia, who 
is sometimes considered the second founder of Stoic 
philosophy, because he so elaborated and extended its 
doctrines. He is said to have written daily five hun- 
dred lines and to have composed seven hundred and 
five books. This is not so wonderful as it seems when 
we consider that his works were partly compilations and 
repetitions of doctrines previously enunciated. Not a 
single one remains, but it would be hard to choose 
between their utter loss and the preservation of all. 

Other celebrated Stoics are Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes 
the Babylonian, Posidonius of Rhodes, and Panaetius, 
the principal disseminator of Stoicism in Eome. These 
later teachers blended other doctrines with their Stoic- 
ism, and proceeded eclectically. The most celebrated 
Eoman Stoics are Seneca, the slave Epictetus of Phry- 
gia, and the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. 

The essential aim of philosophy with the Stoics 
is the exercise, the learning of virtue. The centre of 
human activity and striving is the moral life. Physics, 
according to Chrysippus, is only necessary because it 
gives us a means of deciding concerning good and evil, 
what we shall do and what we shall avoid. Philosophy 
is itself a virtue and guides us to right acting. The 
virtuous man is he who subordinates himself to the laws 
of the universe. To do this he must know the laws ; 



STOICISM. 231 

virtue is knowledge with the Stoics^ as with Socrates. 
They insist on strength of will, but strength of will is 
inseparably united with right knowledge. Philosophy 
is in the closest union with practical life ; it is not merely 
a virtue, but without it virtue is impossible. 

The Stoics divide philosophy into logic, physics, and 
ethics. Logic is an outwork of the system, the method 
for attaining true knowledge. Ethics is the final aim 
of philosophic activity, the guidance to virtue ; but 
virtue consists in subordinating oner's self to the eternal 
order of the universe, investigated by physics. The 
study of physics or logic, outside of their significance for 
ethics, is superfluous. 

THE LOGIC OF THE STOICS. 

The Stoics regard sensuous perception as the original 
source of all our knowledge ; the soul is a blank until 
written upon by impressions from the outside world. 
Sensuous perception of itself is not knowledge ; to it 
must be added the activity of the understanding. But 
the understanding has no other matter except that which 
is given to it by sensuous perception. Zeno compared 
sensation to the outstretched fingers ; assent, as the first 
mental activity, to the closed hand; conception to the 
fist ; and knowledge to one fist firmly grasped by the 
other. The difference between sensation and knowledge 
is in the greater or less strength of conviction ; it is 
merely subjective and gradual — one of degree, not of kind. 

The bulwark against doubt is practical need ; knowl- 
edge must be possible, or man could not act morally. 
The criterion of truth is the concept which produces in 
the mind immediate certainty of its correspondence 



232 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

and identity with the object. Hegel praises the insight 
of the Stoics, the witness of the subjective reason to 
the objective reasonableness of the world. But he finds 
the unity which it expresses merely formal because it 
does not contain difference as well as identity. The true 
criterion is thought as self-determination, developing 
and at the same time annulling its own antithesis of 
subjective and objective. 

The Stoics contradict themselves — seeking on the 
one hand a solid basis for a scientific process of proof, 
and on the other turning to the immediate, the sensu- 
ous, as the ground of certainty. They lose sight of 
the especial problem of logic — an exposition of the real 
laws and operations of thought — to busy themselves 
with empty forms and abstractions. The chief value of 
their work lies in their recognition of the principle that 
the universal as thought is the true universal, although 
they are not able to show its self-separation and self- 
identification in the particular and the individual. 

THE PHYSICS OF THE STOICS. 

The Stoics assert that nothing exists except the 
corporeal, widening its concept so as to include the 
soul, virtue, truth, God. According to Plato a man 
is just when he participates in the idea of justice; 
according to the Stoics a man is just when he has 
in him the material producing justice. This mater- 
ialism is not wholly consistent inasmuch as they do 
not deny the existence and incorporeality of thought, 
or space, or time. It seems foreign to the ideal 
moral tendencies of their philosophy, but is never- 
theless grounded in its practical character. 



STOICISM. 233 

Their point of view is that of ordinary common 
sense which knows of nothing real except the sensible 
and the corporeal. What they seek to discover is a 
firm basis for human activity. In action man is brought 
into direct contact with the external worlds and its 
existence is taken for granted. Hence the Stoics in- 
fer that the only reality is that which acts upon us 
or is acted upon by us^, the corporeal. It follows 
from this that the individual perception is alone true; 
and yet the Stoics inconsistently ascribe higher truth 
to the general concept. 

Their view of nature is dynamic. They separate 
the moment of activity from that of passivity ; the 
concept of force is higher than that of matter. 
Matter alone is real^ but the characteristic of reality 
is causation^ capacity to act and be acted upon. 
Matter cannot move except as it is penetrated by 
force ; force is the energy of God, the soul of the 
world. Matter and force, the passive and the active, 
are manifestations of one and the same Being. The 
second is not independent of the first as with Aris- 
totle, but the two are inseparable. God and the 
world are identical ; the world is God, God is the 
world. The Stoics will not admit any distinction 
between the two, hence their pantheism. The spiritual 
to them is always clothed in the sensuous; God is 
represented ideally as the Providence of the world, 
caring for all his creatures ; as the perfect, gracious, 
all-knowing Reason, living a life of eternal blessed- 
ness ; but he is also Fire, Ether, Air, the Breath, 
Nature, Destiny, the Whole and the Law of the 



234 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Whole. He is the Universal Substance changing into 
definite forms of matter^ whose divine life is an 
eternal circular process, flowing out into the world 
to return into itself again. However regarded, as in- 
cluding everything or but a part of real existence. 
He is indissolubly united with the corporeal. 

Following Heraclitus the Stoics believed that the 
world originated from primitive fire, changing into 
air, then into earth and water. Everything results 
from a natural and inflexible connection of causes and 
eilects, otherwise the Divine Force that rules the 
world would not be its Absolute Cause. This necessity 
as the law of Nature is Destiny ; as the ground of 
development according to design. Providence. Matter 
is in constant transition, but the law within it, its 
formative energy, never changes. This energy, this 
divine activity, is directed immediately to the whole; 
mediately to the individual, a part of the whole. 

The Stoics affirm a certain freedom of the will, 
although according to their theory the actions and 
destinies of men must be predetermined. The law that 
works in the whole works differently according as its 
material is inorganic, or organic, or intelligent and 
reasonable. Our action may be due to our own im- 
pulse and decision, although determined by forces 
that lie in the nature of the universe and of our 
character. It is so far free as it springs from our 
will co-operating with external causes ; upon this de- 
pends moral responsibility. The soul cannot escape 
the divine law of its being ; its freedom consists in be- 
ing determined, not from without but from within, 



STOICISM. 235 

through its own nature. It is the soul itself that turns 
to truth or error ; intellectual conviction as well as 
moral action result from and are due to the exercise of 
our will. What proceeds from my will is my deed^ 
whether it is or is not possible for me to think and 
act differently. I can obey the law of the whole will- 
ingly or unwillingly, freely or under compulsion. 

The whole is perfect ; whence come imperfection 
and evil ? The Stoics like other philosophers find their 
justification difficult. Moral evil is the only real evil, 
and is referred to a necessity of human nature which 
in order to be human could not be created differently. 
Evil will in the long run be turned to good, on whose ac- 
count it exists as a means of development and realization. 

The human soul is described as vital warmth dif- 
fused throughout the body which it sustains and 
holds together. It is related to the soul of the world 
as the part to the whole, and will be absorbed into 
the Universal Eeason, of which it is a dependent por- 
tion, at the end of the world-process. 

It is difficult to understand how a philosophy 
like Stoicism, whose chief characteristic is its moral 
tendency, could deny the freedom of the will and 
the immortality of the soul. But the same position 
is taken by a great modern thinker, Spinoza. Doubtless 
they discerned some kind of unity underneath the 
contradictory aspects which the problem presents to 
our limited vision. 

THE ETHICS OF THE STOICS. 

The central point of Stoicism and its chief glory 
is ethics. The highest good can only be found in that 



236 A STUDY OF GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

which is conformable to nature, and nothing is conform- 
able to nature unless it is in harmony with the law of 
the universe^ its divine reason. The reason in man 
must consciously cooperate with this law^ must trans- 
form into final cause what is only impulse with the 
animal, the impulse of self-preservation. To live in 
harmony with nature is to live reasonably, according to 
the Stoics. Eational activity is virtue and happiness. 
Happiness consists exclusively in virtue ; the good and 
the useful coincide with duty and reason. The thought 
that in moral activity I recognize myself as a conscious 
intelligence obeying the divine intelligence of the uni- 
verse exalts human personality to its supremest height. 
The human will is deified in its identification with 
universal law through self-conscious obedience. 

The activity of man is directed to the individual, 
the particular ; but to make these its final aim is to con- 
tradict its divine nature. The individual and the par- 
ticular must be subordinated to the universal ; appetite 
and emotion must be subordinated to reason. It is the 
glory of the Stoics, the source of their moral energy 
and austerity, that they hold so strictly to the universal ; 
that they define it abstractly is a defect and shortcom- 
ing. There is a sense in which reason, virtue and 
happiness are identical ; but there is also a sense in 
which they differ, and this the Stoics disregard. 

What is not good in and for itself is not good at 
all. It may be simply indifferent, something that can 
be used either for good or evil, as health, riches, honor, 
life itself. Pleasure is not a good ; to make it the aim 
of life is to turn aside from reason, virtue, and hap- 



STOICISM. 237 

piness. It is no proof to the contrary that peace of 
mind follows moral conduct, and inner dissatisfaction 
its opposite. Pleasure is not the aim, but a result of 
moral activity, different from virtue in essence and 
kind. ^'^We do not love virtue because it gives us 
pleasure/^ says Seneca, ^^but it gives us pleasure be- 
cause we love it.^^ And again: ^^In doing good man 
should be like the vine which has produced grapes, 

and asks for nothing more To ask to be 

paid for virtue is as if the eye demanded a recompense 
for seeing, or the feet for walking.'^ Pleasure in its 
very nature is perishable ; virtue is enduring and eternal. 
Pleasure is dependent on something external to itself ; 
virtue is independent, its reward lies in its own nature, 
it possesses in itself every condition of happiness. But 
happiness with the Stoics is negative in so far as it is 
freedom from disturbance, mental tranquillity rather 
than positive enjoyment. 

Grounded in the universal order of the world, virtue 
opposes man as law, but as the law of his own being 
and its final cause. Obedience to law is imposed upon 
him by his own inmost self. His recognition of the 
reason within him is his recognition of moral respon- 
sibility. The good alone is worth striving for, it is 
that to which he naturally aspires. Were he purely 
rational no struggle would be required for its achieve- 
ment. But he is not, he possesses emotions and passions 
contrary to nature and reason. Their source is false 
opinion. From an irrational view of what is good arise 
pleasure and desire, one referring to the present, the 
other to the future ; in the same way care and fear 



238 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

spring from an irrational view of what is evil. True 
virtue consists in their complete subjugation and sup- 
pression. The wise man will be free from pleasure and 
pain, from desire and fear ; he will feel no joy, no 
suffering, no pity. Virtue as this negative ideal is 
apathy rather than rational activity ; the universal is 
seized abstractly and contradicts itself. The emotional 
life of man belongs to the side of his separate existence ; 
to ignore it is to lose sight of his humanity. 

But for all its abstractness the grandeur of the Stoic 
principle is not to be disputed. Stoicism was a system 
of discipline, restraining the passions and emotions, 
dignifying and strengthening the will. Man was to 
seek and find within himself freedom and independence, 
in the will to be virtuous. Suffering was no evil be- 
cause it could not penetrate to this stronghold ; even 
though it might be felt, it could not disturb his in- 
ward peace and harmony. This was happiness, a per- 
manent condition of the soul. 

As rightly ordered reason, virtue is based upon knowl- 
edge. The only guide to virtue is knowledge ; the 
only aim of knowledge is rational action. Neither can 
be conceived without the other. Virtue can be taught, 
but it can never be attained by mere exercise or habit. 
It lies wholly in the intention; the will to perform a 
good action is worth as much as its execution. An 
evil desire is evil though it may not be gratified. Virtue 
does not admit of degrees ; we have it wholly, or not 
at all. ^^In order to drown it is not necessary to be 
five hundred leagues under water ; an ell is sufficient. ^^ 

Who, then is virtuous ? The ideal wise man, say the 



STOICISM. 239 

Stoics, landing us in another paradoxical abstraction ; 
the rest of the world are fools. The wise man is 
absolutely good ; he who lacks wisdom is absolutely evil. 
To pass from folly to wisdom is instantaneous conver- 
sion. 

Practically, the Stoics were obliged to deviate from 
this rigid ideal in the direction of the ordinary view 
of life, admitting relative as well as absolute good. But 
as expressing their philosophy, it has a peculiar signifi- 
cance. Hegel explains it as the will of the subject that 
wills itself only as the good because it is good, wills its 
own freedom, and as the inner consciousness withdrawn 
into itself is wholly separated from and unmoved by the 
external. It is a personal ideal because virtue to the 
Stoics consists in the preservation and maintenance of 
self-consciousness as reason. The one is defined by the 
other, and there is no way out of the circle. '^ The 
goodness of man lies in devotion to the ideal of 
humanity, ^^ says Prof. T. H. Green, ^' and the ideal 
of humanity consists in the goodness of man.^^ 

Virtue is the moral essence of the individual, but 
of the individual conscious of self as universal reason. 
This is the truth of Stoic morality. Self-consciousness 
reaches the negative moment of abstraction from real 
existence, comprehending its own essence as reason 
and therefore freedom, giving up everything but 
preserving itself in this surrender by making it volun- 
tary — an act of self-conscious intelligence. The sub- 
jective becomes the objective, but the Stoics compre- 
hend the two merely as self-identity, not as self- 
distinction and self-determination in a concrete world 



240 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

of real existence. The ideal wise man is released from 
every sensuous limitation; ^^he is free even in fetters, 
for he acts from himself, unmoved by fear or desire/^ 
^^He alone is king, for he owes allegiance to no one 
but himself, and is not bound by the laws/^ Whatever 
he does is virtuous. From this point of view the basest 
action might be justified. But the deeper insight would 
be that such an action is impossible to the wise man, 
who is and must remain ideal. 

That the ideal is duty for its own sake, a categori- 
cal imperative, the Stoics, like Kant, emphasize. But 
they do not show that it is a process of realization in 
human society and human conduct, reaching upward 
continually to an ever higher summit of self-realization 
and self-perfection. Man is conscious of himself as the 
final end of his own action, but he is also conscious 
of himself as a progressive being, passing from possi- 
bility to realization, and again to possibility. Otherwise 
morality would be impossible. 

We can reach no higher ideal than the Stoic, that 
virtue is genuine only when resting on a pure will, 
the will to do good, directed not to anything external, 
but to its own perfection. Its negative aspect is its 
complete renunciation of the sensuous and the emo- 
tional in human life, whose relative worth they admit, 
practically requiring only their subordination to reason. 
Individual man is to seek for himself moral independ- 
ence in the development and perfection of his own 
inner being, recognizing himself as reason, which he 
does not possess exclusively, but shares with all men. 
On one hand, he is required to live for the common 



STOICISM. 241 

good and for society; on the other^ he is required to 
live for himself only in the inward consciousness of 
virtue. He is led by the first to seek companionship ; 
by the second, to dispense with it wholly. The first 
culminates in citizenship of the world ; the second in 
the self-sufficingness of the wise man. Virtue is the 
surrender of the individual to the whole, obedience to 
the common law ; but it is also the harmony of man 
with himself, the rule of his higher nature over the 
lower, elevation above everything which does not belong 
to his true being. 

Individual self-culture and the social well-being of 
the community are not elements which oppose each other 
absolutely, they are rather parts of one great whole. 
Man must live for his fellow-men, or he cannot truly 
live for himself. ^' The whole universe which you see 
around you, comprising all things, both divine and 
human, is one. We are members of one great body. 
Nature has made us relatives when it begat us from the 
same materials and for the same destinies. She planted 
in us a mutual love, and fitted us for a social life.^^ 
Human virtue culminates in social virtue, justice ; to 
love other men is to be more truly natural than to love 
one^s self. We must at the same time love and be just 
to our fellow men. Justice does not exclude beneficence, 
benevolence, a readiness to forgive. ^'^Men were born 
for the sake of men, that each should assist the others. ^^ 
^^ Nature has inclined us to love men, and this is the 
foundation of the law.""^ 

The action of the wise man benefits all other men ; 
to lift a finger reasonably is to serve the whole world. 



242 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The wise man alone knows how to love rightly, because 
he alone loves not for external advantage, but for inner 
worth. Genuine friendship is a fraternal union of the 
wise and the good ; its value is in itself alone. Seneca 
tells us that we must love our friend not because he can 
help and cherish us, but as one whom we can help and 
cherish, and for whom, if need be, we can suffer and die. 

Man as man, a citizen not of the state but of the 
world, is the object of interest with the Stoics ; politics 
is subordinated to ethics. We are no more related to one 
than to another ; we are all limbs of one body, or, 
according to Epictetus, we are all brethren and children 
of one father. The moral consciousness is here widened 
to universality ; withdrawn into his own interior being, 
man recognizes its spiritual essence as universal, the 
divine in all men. The Stoics proclaim with energy a 
universal human brotherhood. 

Man^s ethical relation to the world is predetermined 
by destiny, the law of the universe, to which he must 
submit unconditionally. This dogma springs necessarily 
from the Stoic point of view, but is also the product of 
an age when Eome like an iron fate dominated the world 
of external reality. There is only one way to happiness 
and independence, to will nothing except that which is 
in the nature of things, and which must therefore be 
realized. Man must submit his will to the divine will, 
must yield to destiny ; but it is his prerogative as a 
reasonable being to submit voluntarily. Active resist- 
ance is justified only when he is placed in circumstances 
that force him to unworthy conduct. Suicide is the 
highest expression of moral freedom. Life in itself is 



STOICISM. 343 

not regarded as good^ nor death in itself as evil ; they 
are only so relatively. '^'^A philosopher should never 
commit suicide/' says Seneca, '^in order to escape suf- 
fering, but only to withdraw from restraints in following 
out the aim of his life.'"' 

The moral theory of the Stoics begins with the 
recognition of the divine as reason controlling the 
activity of man ; it ends with the requirement that 
man shall submit his will to the will of God. Moral 
duty springs from a basis of religion, from the com- 
mon relation of all men to God. Stoicism, like Platon- 
ism, is in part a religious system as well as a philosophy. 
Whatever harmonized with his thought in the popular 
faith the Stoic accepted, but without criticism. The 
old myths were interpreted anew. A natural connec- 
tion was seen between the oracle and the gift of 
prophecy. This gift rests on the relationship between 
God and the human soul ; purity of heart is its essen- 
tial condition. The spirit of man, wholly withdrawn 
from the sensuous and external, is open to the revela- 
tion of the spirit of God. 

Stoicism expresses the character of an age that 
cared little for scientific research or the joy resulting 
from practical action. But it was an age that in the 
overthrow of states recognized more fully the idea of 
humanity. Man was to become free and happy through 
the reasonable exercise of will. But he was regarded 
only as the organ of universal law, which he must 
obey. The common moral obligation was recognized, 
but not the right of the individual to act conformably 
to his own peculiar character. The part was depressed 



244 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

that the whole might be exalted as universal hu- 
manity. 

^^The Stoic principle is a necessary moment in the 
idea of absolute consciousness/^ says Hegel; "^^it is also 
a necessary appearance of the time. For if, as in the 
Eoman world, the life of real spirit was lost in the 
abstract universal, so must the consciousness whose 
universality is destroyed go back into its individuality 
to maintain itself in thought. ^^ Eight and morality 
were disappearing from the common life of men; con- 
sciousness was thus led to maintain their subjective 
existence as its own inner freedom, giving up all rela- 
tion to the outer world. The Stoics did not reach 
the higher insight which would make the outer 
the realization of the inner, expressing subjective free- 
dom objectively in laws and institutions. Self-con- 
sciousness of their universal validity is the harmony 
between the reasonable will and reality. On one side, 
the objective system of freedom exists as external laws 
and duties that I must obey; on the other, obedience 
is freedom when I recognize their source in myself as 
reason constituting their reality and my own. The 
Stoics made the inner freedom of self-consciousness the 
basis of morality, but did not develop its concrete form 
wherein the two antithetical sides, the external world 
and the internal conscience, annul and complete each 
other in one harmonious whole. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

EPICUREAIS^ISM. 

SIDE by side with the Stoic school of philosophy 
flourished its adversary^ the Epicurean. Epicurus 
was born 342 B. C. Little is known of him until in 
his thirty-sixth year he began to teach philosophy in 
Athens. The seat of his school was his garden ; its 
spiritual centre was his own personality. Never did 
teacher inspire more love and veneration. His disciples 
were devoted friends who lived with him in a perma- 
nent social union^ bound by ties of affection so strong 
that Epicurus refused to permit a community of goods^ 
saying that it would indicate mistrust, and that friends 
should confide in one another. That he was worthy of 
the love and esteem which he inspired, his contempor- 
aries testify. 

After his death, which took place in his seventy- 
first year, he was so deeply honored and revered that 
no one ever ventured to make a single change in his 
system of thought. His maxims and doctrines were 
committed to memory ; philosophy to the Epicureans 
was a body of mechanical tradition rather than a living 
process of development. The ground of this is found 
in the system itself, whose only activity is the negation 
of thought by thought. 

Epicurus was a voluminous writer, surpassing even 

245 



246 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

the stoic Chrysippus in the number of his works. 
Most of them are lost, but among those which are pre- 
erved are the summaries of his system, which he him- 
self composed. Among his disciples none were more 
famous than the Eoman poet Lucretius, who has em- 
bodied in didactic verse the Epicurean doctrines. 
Other sources of information are Diogenes Laertius, 
Sextus Epicurus, and the Stoic Seneca.. 

The aim of philosophy, according to Epicurus, is to 
promote happiness by means of thought and speech. 
He goes to the extreme in subordinating theoretical to 
practical interests ; all knowledge is useless that does 
not minister to practical need. Nature is to be studied, 
not for itself, but to free the soul from the terror of 
superstition. So, too, with human instinct and desire. 
They are to be investigated only that we may control 
and limit them to natural need. Philosophy is divided 
into canonics, or logic, physics, and ethics ; but the 
first two exist for the third, to which they are wholly 
subordinated. 

LOGIC. 

Epicurus referred everything to the feeling of pleas- 
ure or pain; the test of truth is sensuous perception. 
His point of view is that of common life ; what I see, 
hear, feel, experience through the senses, is real. Sen- 
sation is always to be trusted ; a delusion of the senses 
is a mistake of judgment. Error lies not in sensation, 
but in opinion. Sensuous perception is itself clear evi- 
dence. Through its repetition a general picture of 
what has been perceived is retained by the mind. This 
is the concept, or notion, which, like perception, is 



EPICUREANISM. 247 

true in itself, needing no proof. The two are the neces- 
sary presupposition and criterion of knowledge. We 
must admit their validity in order to escape universal 
doubt. The aim of logical inquiry is simply to estab- 
lish a test of truth. 

PHYSICS. 

In natural science Epicurus followed Democritus as 
the Stoics followed Heraclitus. He places the end of 
action in each individual taken by itself, and what is 
so absolutely individual as atoms ? Nothing exists ex- 
cept atoms and empty space ; there is no third, as mind 
or intelligence. The atoms have weight as well as 
shape and size, and are moved by natural necessity. 
But they have also the smallest degree possible of self- 
motion, and as they fall are able to swerve aside 
slightly from the perpendicular line, the strict law of 
gravity. Upon this curious doctrine rests the freedom 
which Epicurus attributes to the human will. There 
is no design in nature ; its appearance is merely an 
accidental result of material causes. We see because we 
have eyes, but we do not possess oyes in order to see. 

The human soul is composed of the lightest and 
most easily moved atoms ; this is evident from the 
speed of thought. The soul consists of two parts, the 
rational and irrational. The rational has its seat in 
the breast ; the irrational is diffused through the body 
as a principle of life. This is but another way of 
distinguishing between mind and matter, according to 
Zeller. The soul dies with the body ; the time when 
we shall no longer exist affects us as little as the time 
before we existed. 



348 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Hegel says that Epicurus may be regarded as the 
inventor of empirical natural science and empirical 
psychology. He made analogy the principle of ex- 
planation^ reasoning from the known to the unknown ; 
he opposed efficient to final cause; experience to him 
was sensuous reality. All this was developed super- 
ficially, but its result as a knowledge of natural causes 
tended to free men from belief in omens, divination, 
and superstitious rites generally. Epicurus, like the 
modern scientist, argued that the explanation of the 
natural would banish all fear of the supernatural. He 
criticized the gods of the popular faith, but believed in 
their eternal existence and happiness, withdrawing from 
them only what was unfitting to their divinity. 

ETHICS. 

The study of physics is intended to overcome the 
prejudices that stand in the way of happiness ; the 
study of ethics explains the nature of happiliess 
and the means for its attainment. The only uncon- 
ditional good, according to Epicurus, is pleasure, which 
may result from motion or from rest ; the only uncon- 
ditional evil is pain. This conviction is presupposed 
in all our activity ; from the first moment of existence 
the living being seeks pleasure and avoids pain. 

But there is a difference of degree in pleasure and 
pain ; we must consider their relation one to the other, 
must renounce pleasure to escape greater pain, and 
endure pain to attain greater pleasure. In order to 
compare and choose between the two intelligence is 
necessary, insight into their real nature. The state of 
the mind is more important than the state of the 



EPICUKEAKISM. 249 

body. Sensuous enjoyment is but for a moment and 
contains much that is disturbing ; mental enjoyment 
is pure and lasting. So^ too^ bodily pain is less se- 
vere than mental suffering, which stretches over the 
past and the future as well as the present. The only 
distinction that Epicurus makes between the mental 
and the physical, is the addition of memory or hope 
or fear to the present feeling of pleasure or pain. The 
supreme good is not to suffer ; for the body no pain, 
for the soul no trouble. 

How are we to attain the tranquillity that nothing 
can disturb ? Through free choice. Though the soul 
is but an assemblage of atoms it has the power of 
deviating from its natural inclination. This power 
intelligently directed enables man to evade the law of 
destiny, to break through the chain of causes and 
effects, to free himself from outward and inward 
necessity. The superior is derived from the inferior ; 
the origin of freedom is found in the physical, and not 
in the nature of divine activity, as with Aristotle. 

Epicurus bases his moral theory on pleasure, but pleas- 
ure arising from the exercise of virtue. The two are iden- 
tified, but in a manner opposed to that of the Stoics ; 
virtue is never an end in itself, it is simply the means to 
an external aim, pleasure. The source of pleasure is not 
the consciousness of duty fulfilled, or virtuous activity 
itself; it is freedom from fear, danger, and all that 
disquiets the soul. A wise self-control will teach us 
how to enjoy the most and suffer the least. But, with 
an inconsistency that attracts us and leads us to believe 
in the genuine unselfishness of human nature, Epicurus 



350 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

insists that we must do good, not from compulsion, nor 
from regard to others, but from joy in the good itself ; 
that we must obey not the letter, but the spirit of the 
law. 

Eeal wealth consists in limiting our wants ; not to use 
little, but to need little, is the true source of self- 
satisfaction. The Epicurean wise man, unlike the Stoic, 
is not wholly free from desire and emotion, but through 
moderate self-restraint prevents their exercising an 
injurious influence over his life. He is neither a cynic 
nor a beggar. But Epicurus asserts that he will be 
happy under all circumstances, and this is the paradox 
of the Stoics, which seeks to make man free in himself 
as infinite thought or self -consciousness independent of 
everything external. 

Epicurus ascribes little worth to the state and civil 
society. He asserts that they are organized merely for 
an external purpose, mutual safety and protection ; that 
justice is binding, not in itself, but for the general 
good. Political activity, unless for personal security, 
is regarded as a hindrance to the true aim of life, the 
attainment of happiness. Zeller thinks it fitting that 
the soft, timid spirit of the Epicurean should seek the 
protection of a monarchical form of government, while 
the stern, unflinching moral teaching of the Stoic should 
express itself in the unbending republicanism so often 
encountered in Kome. 

The highest form of social life with Epicurus is 
friendship. This was the logical outcome of his theory 
of atomism, his view of the individual as a social atom 
rather than a member of an organic whole. Friendship 



EPICUREANISM. 251 

is a voluntary relation based on individual character 
and inclination^ unlike that of the state which does 
not admit of personal choice It is to be cultivated on 
account of its utility^ but it is also maintained that it 
exists for itself in so far as self-love and the love of a 
friend are equally strong. We need the help and 
approval of those whom we love to give firmness to 
conviction^ to rise above the changing circumstances of 
life. The aim of friendship is the self -enjoyment of 
cultivated personality. It is the highest earthly good ; 
the wise man will even die for his friend if necessary. 
Friendship was not only taught but practiced by the 
Epicureans^ with a depth and ardor of sentiment char- 
acteristic of a philosophy based on feeling rather than 
on thought. 

The Epicurean ethics reflect the gentle, humane 
spirit of their founder. Epicurus insisted on compas- 
sion and forgiveness^ and even declared that it is bet- 
ter to give than to receive. If he did harm by his 
theory of the utility of virtue, he at the same time 
taught men that true happiness is mental serenity, and 
can only be attained through self-culture and self-de- 
velopment. If he made pleasure the end of action, it 
was pleasure watched over and weighed by understand- 
ing and reflection, the result of thought rather than of 
feeling. His ethical principle seems to culminate in 
selfishness and egotism, and is diametrically opposed to 
the Stoic; yet both aim towards inner independence of 
everything external, an ideal freedom of self-conscious- 
ness. The Stoic cannot separate happiness from virtue; 
the Epicurean cannot separate virtue from happiness. 



252 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Both agree that passion must be held in check by rea- 
son ; but with the Epicurean the restraint is from a 
prudential motive ; with the Stoic the restraint is it- 
self virtue. Both presuppose as the basis of their 
thought subjectivity limited to itself^ expressed in 
their highest aim as the ideal wise man, self-suffi- 
cient in solitude. 

It is one and the same principle which we view 
from opposite sides^ in Stoicism and Epicureanism, 
says Zeller, the principle of abstract self-conscious- 
ness developed to universality. To produce this self- 
consciousness is the aim of philosophy. The Stoic 
seeks to realize it by subordinating the individual to 
the universal law ; the Epicurean^ by freeing the in- 
dividual from dependence on anything external. The 
subject is conceived by the Stoic as thought^ by the 
Epicurean as feeling. To one the highest good is 
therefore virtue ; to the other, pleasure. But pleas- 
ure regarded as a whole, and conditioned through 
insight and the action corresponding to insight, is 
not unlike virtue in its result. Happiness, to the 
Epicurean as to the Stoic, is an inward harmony of 
the soul. 

Both Epicureanism and Stoicism turn from meta- 
physics to ethics, from Plato and Aristotle to Socra- 
tes and the Socratic schools. Yet both look for in- 
dependence of the senses in self -consciousness, in sub- 
jective activity, which is a one-sided application of 
the idealism of Plato and Aristotle. Both express a 
certain stage in the development of Greek thought, 
a necessary one in philosophy, according to Hegel. 



EPICUREAKISM. 253 

The abstract universality of thought is the principle 
of the Stoics ; the abstract universality of feeling is 
the principle of the Epicureans. Both argue that 
knowledge must be possible^ or there could be no cer- 
tainty of action. But Scepticism annuls their one- 
sidedness and carries to the extreme the withdrawal 
of man into himself^ renouncing all claim to knowl- 
edge and all interest in the external world. Sub- 
jectivity reaches complete abstraction; scepticism is a 
negative that remains negative and knows not how 
to transform itself into something affirmative. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

SCEPTICISM. 

TDHILOSOPHY, according to Hegel^ contains in 
-■- itself the negative of scepticism as its own dia- 
lectic^ a negative that becomes affirmative in the living 
process of knowledge. The seed is negated^ destroyed^ 
yet re-affirmed in the plant. The negative is not the 
finals but a necessary element of concrete reality. Scep- 
ticism regards it as the contradictory appearance^ a 
negative that destroys the possibility of knowledge. 
Neither the Stoic nor the Epicurean principle are valid ; 
we cannot prove the existence of virtue or pleasure^ the 
truth of reason or of the senses^ the physics of pan- 
theism or of atomism. Everything wavers amid uni- 
versal uncertainty except abstract personality content 
with itself. 

Three schools appeared in succession^ the Old Scep- 
ticism^ the New Academy, and the Later Scepticism. 
The last was in part a revival of the first, but the New 
Academy was distinct from both, not only because it 
claimed to follow the teachings of Plato, but as directed 
principally against the dogmatism of the Stoics, and less 
radical in its sceptical doctrines than the other schools. 

The most eminent leaders of the New Academy were 
its founder, Arcesilaus, and his successor, Carneades. 
Arcesilaus affirmed that the subjective conviction of self- 

254 



SCEPTICISM. 255 

consciousness is not a criterion of truth ; that we cannot 
attain knowledge, and must therefore be guided by 
probability. The connection of this principle with the 
dialectic of Plato, regarded negatively, or the Ideas as 
abstract Universals, is apparent. 

In his polemic against the Stoics Arcesilaus argued 
that their principle is contradictory, in so far as it is 
thought thinking something other than itself. This is 
the same distinction expressed in modern philosophy as 
the contrast between thought and being, ideality and 
reality, subjective and objective. How can I, the 
internal thinking subject, know the external object ? 

Knowledge to Arcesilaus is incomprehensible ; we can 
only attain to probability through culture and under- 
standing. Probability is a practical guide, enabling us 
to choose the good and avoid the evil ; it is the basis of 
virtue. 

A century later, Carneades developed more completely 
the negative and the positive side in the teaching of 
Arcesilaus. On a foundation of absolute doubt he built 
the certainty of practical conduct. Truth is unattain- 
able, but a conviction resting on its appearance, proba- 
bility, is indispensable for practical activity. There 
are three degrees of probability: the first and weakest 
is a representation which produces alone and for itself 
the impression of truth ; a higher degree is the con- 
firmation of this impression by all the other representa- 
tions which are connected with the first; the highest 
of all is a thorough investigation of their relation, which 
produces perfect conviction. 

The Academic principle is not truth, but subjective 



256 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

certainty. As probability^ it is a positive principle^ the 
basis of moral activity. Its scepticism is not so com- 
plete and thorough-going as that of the other schools, 
which precede, accompany, and follow its own. 

Pyrrho of Elis, a contemporary of Aristotle, is re- 
garded as the head of the old Sceptics. He left no 
writings ; what we know of his thoughts is derived 
from Timon of Phlius, his disciple. It is probable that 
his doctrines are sometimes confused with those of his 
followers. 

Scepticism, like Stoicism and Epicureanism, is prac- 
tical in its tendency ; the aim of philosophy is hap- 
piness. To be happy we must understand how things 
are and how we are related to them ; what we can 
know and what we are to do. They appear so and 
so, but we can never say what they are. There is 
nothing concerning which men agree ; the testimony 
of reason and of the senses is contradictory ; one and 
the same thing can be affirmed or denied. We must 
therefore suspend judgment and regard everything as 
undecided, even indecision itself. Our mental atti- 
tude must be one of sceptical indiflEerence. We can- 
not make a positive assertion; we can only say ^''it 
is possible, ^^ ^^perhaps,^^ or, if we are very cautious, 
^^I assert nothing, not even that I assert nothing. ^^ 

From the renunciation of positive conviction, the 
certainty that we can know nothing, will result im- 
perturbability of spirit, mental equanimity, the with- 
drawal into inner self-consciousness, which is the ideal 
happiness of the Sceptic as of the Stoic and the Epi- 
curean, He who who holds that things in their na- 



SCEPTICISM. 257 

ture are good or evil, is always restless either because 
he does not possess the good or fears the evil. But 
he who is sceptical as to their existence neither seeks 
the one nor flees the other, but remains mentally 
firm and undisturbed. The wise man is free from 
opinion, from prejudice, from desire, from emotion ; 
he is indifferent to sickness and health, life and death; 
he is, in fact, divested of humanity. This is the ab- 
stract ideal of Scepticism, but in so far as it is 
unattainable in ordinary life the Sceptic will follow 
tradition and probability. 

The various ways in which reason and feeling con- 
tradict themselves, justifying doubt, were set forth by 
the Sceptics in ten tropes, collected by JEnesidemus, 
who lived after Cicero. The first is based on the 
difference existing in the animal organism which re- 
sults in difference of feeling and perception, as for 
instance, when one sees green where another sees yel- 
low. The second trope deals with the differences 
found among men. Men are unlike one another men- 
tally as well as bodily. They differ in taste, in phi- 
losophy, in religion. The greatest minds of the ages 
do not agree ; Heraclitus opposes the Atomists, Aris- 
totle opposes Plato, the Stoics the Epicureans, etc. 
It would be presumption to attempt the certainty 
which they could not reach. Inactivity of reason is 
therefore virtue. 

Hereupon Hegel remarks that some people see 
everything in a system of philosophy except philoso- 
phy itself. The different systems of thought, though 
relatively opposed, really complete one another in so 



258 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY 

far as the fixed principle in each becomes an or- 
ganic element of the whole. Truth is essentially a 
living process^ and cannot be limited to one system 
or expressed in it completely. 

The third trope relates to the different functions 
of the organs of sense. The ear cannot perceive 
color^ nor the eye sound ; how^ then^ can they agree 
regarding any object ? The fourth trope notes the 
different circumstances under which objects appear to 
the same subject^ when he is asleep or awake, drunk 
or sober, young or old, etc. Everything appears, but 
nothing is. The fifth trope relates to the diversities 
of appearances due to position, distance, and place. 
One and the same thing seems large or small, accord- 
ing to its distance from the observer. So, too, it 
appears different in a different position or place. The 
sixth trope is derived from intermixture, the fact that 
no single thing is isolated, but is mixed with other 
things, so that we never see pure light, or hear pure 
sound. The testimony of sensation is therefore ob- 
scure and untrustworthy. The seventh trope relates 
to the quantity and modification of the objects of 
perception. For instance, glass is transparent, but 
loses this peculiarity if subjected to pressure ; or, a 
little medicine may be beneficial, but a great deal 
would be fatal. 

The eighth trope is general relativity, the substance 
of all other sceptical tropes, according to Sextus 
Empiricus. Since everything is only in relation to 
something else we can know nothing of its real nature. 
The ninth trope relates to the frequent or rare oc- 



SCEPTICISM. 259 

currence of a thing which affects our judgment con- 
cerning its worth. The tenth trope is ethical, and 
treats of the diversities of opinion, culture, customs, 
laws, myths and scientific theories, which make it im- 
possible for us to judge what is right or wrong. If 
there is only a subjective test for knowledge, it will 
go over into scepticism, when its ground is thought- 
fully investigated. 

All the tropes are directed against the dogmatism 
of human understanding, which says, '' This is so, 
because I find it so in my experience. ^^ It is easy 
to see that from a different point of view the oppo- 
site can be affirmed as equally valid. To find a 
feeling in myself is not a proof of its existence in 
another ; I can assert that it appears, but not that 
it is, because to him it is not. 

Hegel mentions five other tropes, supposed to have 
been collected by Agrippa, that belonged to a higher 
culture of philosophic thinking than the preceding. 
The first is difference of philosophic opinions ; the 
second is infinite progress ; the third is relativ- 
ity of determinations ; the fourth is presuppositions, 
or setting out from some proof illegitimately assumed; 
the fifth is proof in a circle where that on which 
the proof rests must itself be established by that 
which is proved. They are all contradictions into 
which understanding falls, and are directed against 
dogmatic philosophy, not in the sense that it has a 
positive content, but that it affirms something limited 
as an absolute. The consciousness of the negative 
and the definition of its forms found in Scepticism, 
is of the highest importance in philosophy. 



260 A. STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The doctrines of Pyrrho sank into obscurity for a 
time^ but were revived by the later Sceptics, 
^nesidemus, Agrippa, Sextus Empiricus, and others. 
To the works of the Greek physician Sextus, called 
Empiricus because he belonged to the empiric sect, 
we are greatly indebted for our knowledge of the 
doctrines of Scepticism. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ECLECTICISM. 

SCEPTICISM forms the bridge from the one- 
sided dogmatism of the Stoic and Epicurean 
philosophy to Eclecticism/' says Zeller. Though it 
marks a decline of philosophic originality it presup- 
poses a standard given in subjective consciousness 
which enables one to apprehend the true and reject 
the false. In the highest sense of the word it seeks 
to unite concretely the abstract one-sided principles 
of different systems of thought. 

An external influence toward Eclecticism was the 
study of Greek philosophy in Eome. Rome wished 
to make the whole world one Roman nation^ to unite 
in one system all philosophy^ measuring its value by 
the test which she applied to everything, practical 
utility. Cicero is the chief representative of Roman 
Eclecticism. But he is rather an interpreter of Creek 
philosophy to his countrymen than an independent 
investigator. His own basis is doubt ; we can not 
attain positive certainty^ but as much as we need 
for practical life. The consciousness of right is im- 
planted in us by nature and is immediate knowledge. 
So, too, with the consciousness of God, the freedom 
of the will, and the immortality of the soul ; they 
are inwardly attested and need no other proof. 

261 



362 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

The writings of the great Roman Stoics, Seneca, 
Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, deviate slightly toward 
Eclecticism ; the principle of Stoicism through firmly- 
held approaches more and more the principle of 
universal human love. The aim of philosophy is not 
only inner freedom and independence, as in older 
Stoicism, but healing and consolation. 

Seneca dwells upon human weakness and the need 
of help. He exhorts us to be clement and merciful, 
to spare rather than punish. He directs us to strict 
self-examination that we may recognize and overcome 
error and imperfection. 

To Epictetus the philosopher is a physician who 
helps those whom he teaches by awakening the desire 
for spiritual improvement. The beginning and end 
of wisdom is to know what is and is not in our 
power. The first is the sphere of activity ; the 
second is that of submission. Nothing but the will 
to be good depends on us solely; fate can not touch 
us if our only striving is toward moral perfection. 
Epictetus is less proud and more loving than the 
older Stoics ; he extends brotherly sympathy and for- 
bearance to all men, even the most erring and 
wretched. 

A spirit even more humane and gentle pervades the 
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. '' There is but one 
thing of real value, ^^ he writes; ^^to cultivate truth 
and justice, and to live without anger in the midst 
of lying and unjust men.^^ The soul can find re- 
pose only in itself ; reason is the citadel to which 
man must flee if he would be invincible. Reason is 



SCEPTICISM. 263 

in all men ; the erring err involuntarily^ because they 
do not recognize their true interest. He who commits 
injustice injures himself more than others ; we can 
only pity the base and the weak. 

The character of Marcus Aurelius was almost per- 
fect. '' Seldom indeed has such active and unrelax- 
ing virtue been united with so little enthusiasm/^ 
says Lecky, ^' and been cheered by so little illusion 
of success.''^ ^^ Never hope to realize Plato^s Eepublic/^ 
he writes. ^^ Let it be sufficient that you have in 
some slight degree ameliorated the condition of man- 
kind^ and do not think that amelioration of small 
importance.^'' 

One of the adherents of Eclecticism in Greece 
was the celebrated biographer^ Plutarch. To create 
moral character was his aim in philosophy. He be- 
lieved^ with Aristotle^ that practice^ the cultivation of 
the habit of virtue^ precedes actual virtue. One must 
not, like the Stoic, root out passion and affection, 
but moderate and guide them ; they are the matter of 
virtue, reason is its form. We can not control ex- 
ternal circumstances, but we can use them as a moral 
help or hindrance. There is no essential difference 
among men except that of virtue and vice. Religion 
is the culmination of ethics. There are not different 
gods for different nations, but One Eeason rules the 
world, named and worshiped differently according 
as the holy symbols which guide the human spirit 
to the Divine are more obscure or more distinct. 

Plutarch is classed with the Neo-Pythagoreans, 
among the precursors of Neo-Platonism. The same 



264 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

tendency appears in the Alexandrian School, especially 
in Philo, who unites Hebraic theology with Hellenic 
philosophy. His moral theory resembles the Stoic, 
but lacks its support in self-consciousness, which ac- 
cording to Philo is sinful. The aim of philosophy 
is the moral salvation of men ; its first problem is 
self-knowledge. The deeper we penetrate within, the 
greater is our distrust of self. We can attain wisdom 
only through self-renunciation, complete surrender to 
God. Philosophy culminates in the absolute absorp- 
tion of self in the Divine self, immediate union with 
Deity. 



CHAPTEE XXXV. 

NEO-PLATOKISM. 

/"^ EEEK philosophy closes in Neo-Platonism, a final 
^^ attempt to solve all its problems^ not by setting 
up a new principle^ but by restoring and interpreting 
Platonism in the sense and according to the spirit of 
the age^ an age that cared more for subjective than 
objective reality. The longing after a higher mediation 
of truth than man finds in himself^ is the root of 
Neo-Platonism. Intuition of Deity attained through 
self-intuition^ is its ruling centre. The aim of philos- 
ophy is placed in that which transcends reason^ imme- 
diate unity with God. Its problem is to derive 
everything finite from Deity — yet separate Deity abso- 
lutely from the finite. To bridge the chasm between 
God and the world requires mediation^ degrees of 
ascent and descent. Man stands on the limit of the 
sensuous and the super-sensuous ; he must elevate 
himself through self-activity out of the one into the 
other. In its theory of the transcendence of Deity 
and a graded transition from the infinite to the 
finite^ Neo-Platonism resembles Oriental philosophy ; 
but the foreign material from whatever source ob- 
tained is so blended and transformed as to constitute 
an integral part of its own system. 

265 



266 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

PLOTIlSrUS. 

The most important representatiye of Neo-Platon- 
ism is Plotinus. He was born in Egypt in the third 
century A. D. He studied Platonic philosophy in 
Alexandria with Ammonius Saccas, a celebrated teacher, 
who is regarded as the founder of Neo-Platonism. 
After traveling in Persia and India, Plotinus went 
to Eome in his fortieth year to lecture on philoso- 
phy. He produced a great impression, not only by 
the extent of his knowledge and the originality of 
his thought, but by his modesty, his moral earnest- 
ness and religious consecration. He was so pure, so 
inspired, so lifted above worldliness, that even his 
closest friends approached him with awe and rever- 
ence. His writings were collected and published after 
his death by Porphyry, his disciple and successor. 

Plotinus posits as the primitive source of all being 
that which lies beyond thought, or the world of 
ideas, the One only. Thought is a duality of sub- 
ject and object, of essence and activity ; the One, 
therefore, is not thought, but its transcendence. De- 
fined negatively. Primordial Being is that to which 
we can ascribe no quality, not even reason ; defined 
positively, it is the One, the Good, Absolute Caus- 
ality. But no concept embraces it, we can say what 
it is not, but not what it is, only that it is, as the 
presupposition of thought and being. 

From Primordial Being, expressed by Plotinus fig- 
uratively as out of its fullness necessarily overflowing, 
though in itself unmoved and undiminished, the finite 
proceeds as a stream, contained in but not contain- 



I^EO-PLATONISM. 267 

ing or in any way affecting its source. Primordial 
Being is the sun which pours through the universe 
its circle of light, a light that gradually pales as it 
reaches its limit in the gloom of not-being. The 
finite is but a shadow of the Infinite. 

Zeller characterizes this theory as dynamic panthe- 
ism rather than emanation, if by emanation we un- 
derstand that the Infinite gives any portion of its 
substance to the finite. This Plotinus denies. But 
in the progress from the Infinite to the finite and 
its decreasing perfection, his doctrine is one of ema- 
nation. God is not in the many substantially, but 
dynamically ; the divine immanence of things is an 
effect produced through his causality. The lower is 
mediated through the higher. What is second or 
produced cannot be as perfect as the first. The first 
is nothing but the transcendent Cause ; the second, 
its original effect, is Nous, or mind, not thought 
whose potentiality is separated from its actuality, but 
thought thinking itself, its own changeless being. 
This being is not pure unity, but multiplicity in 
unity. The many are contained in thought as con- 
cepts, or Platonic ideas. Ideas are regarded as spir- 
itual forces, mediating the transition from the super- 
sensuous to the sensuous. On one side pure reason 
comprehends in itself the archetypes of all existence, 
it is that which moves all forces ; on the other the 
many forces are but one force, the many forms but 
one form, the many gods but one God. 

The product of pure reason is the world-soul, an 
emanation proceeding eternally from a changeless and 



268 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

undiminished substance, as reason proceeds from Prim- 
ordial Being. The world-soul mediates between rea- 
son and the sensuous appearance, it is the outermost 
circle of light beyond the central sun ; beyond it 
begin material darkness and nothingness. It differs 
from reason as the v/ord from the thought, the ap- 
pearance from the essence. It is the universal soul 
which contains in itself all individual souls ; it is one 
and indivisible, but each single being receives of it 
all that it is able to comprehend. 

Matter has no reality, it is the mere possibility of 
being, pure negation. This is Platonic, but Plotinus 
goes farther, and asserts that matter as privation of 
good is evil. He regards it as necessary, and traces 
it to the law which conditions the descent of the 
imperfect from the perfect, the fading of the illum- 
ination from the central light into outermost dark- 
ness. The soul at the limit of the supersensuous 
presses into that which lies outside of itself — matter, 
out of the eternity of reason into temporal life. It 
is a fall, a descent, due not to reason, but to its 
partial obscurity, its withdrawal from Primordial Be- 
ing towards nothingness. 

The sensuous world as a whole is a mere copy of 
the supersensuous, a mirror of the soul in matter. It 
is beautiful and perfect as this mirror ; the Greek 
sense of nature is too sfrong in Plotinus for him to 
view it as altogether evil and unreal. It is not a 
house built of dead matter, but a living being, an or- 
ganic body moved by one soul. Each part is in per- 
fect harmony with the whole^ a harmony that is main- 



keo-plato:n'ISM. 269 

tained, as in miisic^ by apparent discord and contra- 
diction. Everything is guided by Providence, not as 
intelligent foreseeing, but as natural necessity, the im- 
manent relation of the sensuous to the supersensuous. 
The imperfection of the part is necessary for the per- 
fection of the whole ; the finite could not be otherwise 
and remain finite. We have but to cooperate actively 
with Providence, and that which appears evil is trans- 
formed into good. 

Lower than the world-soul are the souls of the 
stars, visible gods who lead a uniform and happy life. 
Lower yet are are the beings whom Plotinus calls de- 
mons, who mediate between the divine and the earthly, 
who are eternal aud supersensuous, yet bound to mat- 
ter and able to appear at need in bodies of fire or air. 
The earth, like the stars, is regarded as a thinking 
being and a god, whose soul overflows into the souls 
of plants, producing their life and growth. The ani- 
mal is regarded as either a ray of the world-soul, 
or a shadowy picture of the human soul bound to 
an animal body. 

The human soul has fallen from the sphere of the 
supersensuous into that of the sensuous. It was once 
a part of the world-soul, free from all suffering, out- 
side of time and change, possessing neither remem- 
brance nor self-consciousness because perfectly trans- 
parent and absorbed in primal intelligence. But as 
original unity produces multiplicity, a like necessity 
compels the soul, standing on the limit of the super- 
sensuous, to illuminate the sensuous. Through exper- 
ience of darkness its own slumbering forces are awak- 



270 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

ened, and it realizes for the first time the full glory 
and perfection of light. 

In so far as union with a body springs from the 
nature and inclination of the soul^ it is free activity, 
but free activity conditioned through universal neces- 
sity, the law that rules the whole and subordinates 
to its perfection the imperfection of the part. The 
descent of the soul into the sensuous is its inherent 
weakness, but weakness that can be transformed into 
strength through its return to the supersensuous. It 
mediates between the higher and the lower, and thus 
leads a double existence, its activity directed now to 
one now to the other. But its peculiar distinction 
is the higher nature which constitutes the spiritual 
reality of man, enabling him to apprehend God in- 
tuitively, and to live in time as if in eternity, par- 
ticipating in divine intelligence. 

The soul cannot sujBEer, but perceives as a shadowy 
picture pain and pleasure, which come from the body 
and the animal principle of life. So, too, the sen- 
suous object cannot affect the soul except through a 
mediate impression. Memory is the first spiritual ac- 
tivity; but an activity that belongs to the soul as 
subjected to change and temporal life. It is con- 
nected with the faculty of imagination, which has a 
concealed duality, a higher and a lower function as 
it reproduces thought or the sensuous image. Con- 
sciousness is the reflex of spiritual activity in the 
faculty of perception ; it is mediated through the sen- 
suous, and is therefore not the highest in man. ^^The 
act of incarnation is coincident with the attainment 



KEO-PLATONISM. 271 

of individual consciousness/^ says Erdmann ; '' it is 
freely willed and at the same time punishment/^ 

Plotinus and the whole Neo-Platonic school main- 
tain that without free-will man could not exist as 
man, that to be a self-active and independent sub- 
ject belongs to his essence as a human being. But 
they do not explain how free-will is to be harmon- 
ized with Providence and the necessity that rules the 
whole, how each creates his own character and yet 
plays the role in the world-drama assigned to him by 
the Creator. He who follows his own nature is free 
because he depends on nothing external to himself ; 
he who strives after the good must act voluntarily. 
The soul in itself is without error, yet before its en- 
trance into the body freely chose a human life. This 
is the unsolved contradiction and discord of earthly 
existence. The true home of the soul is the world 
of the supersensuous ; the body is a prison that it 
would fain escape. But escape is not through death, 
only through inward purification. 

When the body dies, the soul, according to its will 
and inner condition, sinks into matter or into vege- 
tative or animal existence, or seeks again a human 
body or that of a demon, or is raised to the stars 
and restored to its primal purity • and perfection. 
Plotinus believes in transmigration as the law of 
eternal justice ; the oppressor shall become the op- 
pressed ; the master, the slave ; the rich, the poor ; 
the murderer, the murdered, etc. But he is not clear 
as to what constitutes the especial subject of retri- 
bution and transmigration, since the soul ''n itself 



272 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

knows nothing of time or previous existence. It is 
only what it thinks and as it thinks. 

The problem of the soul is to free itself from the 
body through self-activity. The perfect life is the life 
of thought^ a relation of man to his inner being, 
independent of everything external. Virtue is not a 
transformation of character, for the true self is with- 
out error, it consists rather in turning away from all 
that is disturbing. The source of evil is the relation 
of the soul to the body ; purification concerns the 
relation, and not the soul itself. As the artist needs 
only to chisel away part of the marble to restore its 
divine beauty, man needs only to rid himself of the 
sensuous to restore his soul to its unsullied purity. 

Plotinus would not annihilate the sensuous, but 
subject it to reason. The beauty of the world leads 
him to a more positive ethical affirmation than is 
implied in its total renunciation. As a copy of the 
resplendent Idea it reminds the soul of its heavenly 
origin, it kindles the desire for the good; the faint 
earthly reflection helps its ascent toward perfect and 
absolute beauty. But practical activity is regarded as 
subordinate to that which is purely theoretic. So 
far as man works with the external and sensuous he 
is immersed in the world of appearance, his activity 
has but a relative value compared with the absolute 
worth which the soul possesses in itself in thought 
or theory. Outward activity and representation are 
good only so far as they lead to spiritual insight and 
knowledge. 

The attention of Plotinus is too exclusively directed 



NEO-PLATO:t^ISM. 273 

to the inner world of thought for him to pay much 
attention to the state or the organization of society. 
Political virtue has its worth in limiting desire and 
affection; but true wisdom, bravery and justice, are a 
relation of the soul to itself, not to anything external. 
The highest interest of man is to live in the world, 
not as man, but as a god, withdrawn from it entirely 
in his own inner being, a paradoxical ideal not unlike 
the Stoic. 

Even theoretical activity is imperfect if it rests on 
sensuous observation and experience. The thinking 
that is mediated, that separates the knowing subject 
from the object known, is lower than that which is 
immediate, blending the two without distinction. The 
highest knowledge is the self-intuition of reason; with- 
drawn into its pure essence, human thinking is united 
with the divine, with the whole of which it is a part. 
Mystical union with God is the final aim of philos- 
phy. Thought and self-consciousness disappear in a 
divine ecstasy, absorption in the Absolute One. 

Plotinus explains this inward illumination, known 
to him from his own experience, as the sudden and 
immediate filling of the soul with the divine light 
which streams from Deity. It is not knowledge of 
God, but an ecstatic union of the soul with Primi- 
tive Being, a union so perfect as to annul every 
distinction. The soul is absorbed in the pure light 
of Deity ; there is no part but only the whole. 
Thought as limitation, self-consciousness as the dis- 
tinction between subject and object, belong to the 
finite ; the soul exalted to the Infinite is lifted above 



274 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

wisdom and virtue and beauty to a state of religious 
rapture where it is no longer soul^ or self^ or thought, 
but God. 

This condition can be attained only through abso- 
lute abstraction from the external^ the pure absorption 
of the soul in itself. We are not to seek the inward 
light but await it quietly ; we can not say it comes 
or goes^ but it is here^ a sudden illumination of 
perfect bliss and peace. It is of short duration be- 
cause the soul bound to a body emerges from this 
mystical unity into the duality of observer and ob- 
served ; it descends from the enraptured beholding 
of God to consciousness of self. This contradiction 
belongs to its essence as mediating between the higher 
and the lower^ the Infinite and the finite. 

Keligion is in the closest union with philosophy 
to Plotinus as to Plato. Plotinus adapts and inter- 
prets the myths of the popular faith. He explains 
prayer through its sympathetic influence as a spiritual 
force in the universe. Every effect is dynamic rather 
than physical ; the chain of natural causation is 
magic, sympathetic attraction and repulsion. Prophecy 
and the belief in enchantment are closely related to 
magic. 

Plotinus could not escape the irresistible tendency 
of his age, but sought to harmonize its way of think- 
ing with his own deeper insight. He is not so much 
concerned to explain external reality as to elevate 
the spirit to the good and the true, and reveal its 
heavenly origin and destiny. 



KEO-PLATONISM. 275 

PORPHYRY. 

Plotinus was succeeded by his most distinguished 
scholar^ Porphyry. But in creative force Porphyry 
is not to be compared with his master. His especial 
characteristic is the striving towards clearness of 
thought and expression, so that, as Zeller says, he 
appears as the most sober and moderate of the Neo- 
Platonists. He taught both philosophy and eloquence 
in Kome. He popularized the doctrines of Plotinus, 
and sought by means of philosophy to purify reli- 
gious belief and produce true piety. His aim was to 
heal and console men, to purify and stimulate moral 
activity. He regarded asceticism as an especial means 
of purification. He .prohibited the eating of flesh not 
only because it promotes sensuous impulse, but from 
the fact that animal nature is akin to our own as 
bodily, and foreign to it as spiritual. Fettered by the 
body, we are to implore divine help in the struggle 
towards virtue ; religion is indispensable to men who 
feel their finite weakness. Porphyry subordinates the 
theological element to the philosophic ; the reverse is 
true of his disciple, Jamblichus. 

JAMBLICHUS. 

Jamblichus is a theologian rather than a philoso- 
pher ; what he seeks is the speculative basis of reli- 
gion. Convinced of the inherent weakness of human 
nature he declares that it can be purified only 
through the help of higher beings, of heroes, demons, 
angels and gods. The soul is free to choose or reject 
their help, free to turn toward light or darkness, 
good or evil. We can not know how the gods pro- 



276 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

duce the finite ; the first condition of knowledge is 
faith in their omnipotence. Multiplicity is the char- 
acter of the supersensuous as of the sensuous ; the 
polytheistic tendency in the philosophy of Jamblichus 
is not to be mistaken. Historically, it stands on the 
limit which separates Neo-Platonism as a philosophy 
from Neo-Platonism as a system of theology. 

PEOCLUS. 

Proclus is the most celebrated of the later ISTeo- 
Platonists. He was born in Constantinople 412, A. 
D. He studied plilosophy in Alexandria and Athens. 
The teacher whom he honored with especial yenera- 
tion was Syrianus, his immediate predecessor in the 
Athenian school of Keo-Platonism. When at the 
death of Syrianus Proclus assumed its leadership, he 
was already renowned for his learning and piety. 
So great was the impression he produced that he 
was revered as an especial favorite of the gods, a 
model of superhuman moral excellence. He renounced 
family life to devote himself to knowledge. He was 
distinguished for a high sense of friendship, unselfish 
activity, beneficence and humanity. 

What he sought in philosophy was nothing less 
than to unite in one logical whole all the chaotic 
material of Neo-Platonism, and erect for it a scien- 
tific structure. He was especially fitted by specula- 
tive genius and religious enthusiasm to grapple with 
the difficulties of this task. He revered so piously 
the authority of his predecessors that he wished to 
be only their interpreter. He united to a wonderful 
degree the power of abstraction with phantasy, the 



NEO-PLATOKISM. 277 

need of knowledge with faith. He represents Schol- 
asticism in Greek philosophy. His remarkable dia- 
lectic insight was fettered by reliance on authority 
and tradition^ and resulted in that unfruitful for- 
malism which^ according to Zeller, forms the back- 
ground of all Scholasticism. His system is the link 
that mediates the transition from Greek to mediaeval 
philosophy ; the close of the one and an anticipation 
of the other. 

His chief striving was to find the law which con- 
nects everything as a whole ; to explain how the 
many proceed from and return to the One. Like 
Plotinus he derived the finite from the Infinite 
through dynamic causality^ but the derivation is a 
spiral process instead of a simple line. Being as 
original Cause, as the efl:ect proceeding from and re- 
turning to it, are the three moments which eternally 
represent the process of finite creation. The triune 
activity that rules the whole is reflected in every 
part ; each sphere of divided being is one in its totality 
as cause, but proceeds to many effects whose multi- 
plicity can only be annulled by the return to origi- 
nal unity. The threefold relation is thus expressed ; 
the effect in so far as it is like the cause remains 
in it, in so far as it is unlike the cause separates 
from it and seeks to become like it, which consti- 
tutes the struggle of the finite and its return to the 
Infinite. Both derivation and return are a spiral de- 
scent and ascent, mediated in a triune process through 
lower or higher spheres of being. 

Proclus asserts that the human soul can only rise 



278 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

above the sensuous to the supersensuous through 
gradual mediation^ which apparently contradicts the 
fundamental belief of Neo-Platonism that the soul is 
to seek immediate unity with God. The basis of 
higher culture is ethical virtue ; through it one must 
purify himself and submit to be ruled by reason be- 
fore he is fit to turn toward the divine. But faith 
is worth more than knowledge; we cannot in our 
weakness attain the higher life without divine help. 
The ways to God are three: love^ truth, faith. Love 
leads us through beauty to truth ; truth shows us 
the world of the supersensuous ; faith reveals the 
highest, the deep mystery of the universe. Not 
through thinking and reflection, but through that 
absorption of the soul in itself which we owe to 
faith, through divine ecstasy and illumination, are 
we united mystically with God. 

This altar of the Absolute One, an ardent and 
luminous centre in whose divine flame all is consumed 
and united, is the final aim of the philosophy of 
Proclus, as of all Neo-Platonism. The soul has only 
to bury itself in itself to find there the living God. 
But, closely examined, this religious rapture, this 
immediate union with Deity, is not feeling, but 
thought itself in its pure simplicity. It is a higher 
idealism, but the idealism of thought, an inward 
illumination that reveals God, but God as the soul 
of our soul, God as Infinite Eeason. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE CLOSE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

AFTER the death of Proclus, the Athenian school 
rapidly declined, and was closed 529 A. D. by an 
edict of the emperor Justinian. No farther attempt 
was made by the Greek mind to solve the great 
problem of the relation between thought and being. 
Inner exhaustion coincided with external force to 
bring to a close the magnificent work achieved by 
human reason in Greek philosophy. It lasted for 
nine centuries after its quick and glorious bloom in 
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It was the refuge of 
the noblest minds in those dark days of political 
oppression that followed the downfall of Greek in- 
dependence. It preceded and anticipated in part the 
teaching of Christianity, but could not accept it 
wholly without giving up its peculiar character and 
leaving the ground wherein it was rooted. 

Many of the Church Fathers, and some of the 
ablest modern thinkers, believe that it fulfilled a 
propaedeutic office for Christianity. ''Philosophy, be- 
fore the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the 
Greeks for righteousness,"^ says Clement ; '' and it now 
proved useful for godliness, being in some part a 
preliminary discipline for those who reap the fruits 
of faith through demonstration. Perhaps we may say 

279 



380 A STUDY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 

it was given to the Greeks with this special object ; 
for philosophy was to the Greeks what the Law was 
to the Jews^ a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ/^ 
^^Christianity proceeded along lines of thought that 
had been laid through ages of preparation/^ says Dr. 
B. F. Cocker in ^^Christianity and Greek Philosophy/^ 
'' it clothed itself in forms of speech which had been 
moulded by centuries of education^ and it appro- 
priated to itself a moral and intellectual culture which 
had been effected by long periods of severest disci- 
pline.^^ 

History is development of the human spirit accord- 
ing to Divine Law ; the present was potentially in 
the past^ the past is actually in the present. To 
comprehend the thought of to-day we must know the 
thought of yesterday, and be able to recognize their 
fundamental unity. Our insight must be deep enough 
to harmonize what seems discordant and contradictory. 
The divine is revealed in the constitution and de- 
velopment of the human mind, in the history of its 
striving after truth and the knowledge of God. 

Greek philosophy asserts with overwhelming testi- 
mony that the divine is in the human, that the only 
reality is spirit. It affirms the existence of God and 
of the soul, and even in its scepticism finds a strong- 
hold which is proof against attack, the infinite sub- 
jectivity of human consciousness. In Neo-Platonism, 
it seeks through mystic exaltation the perfect identi- 
fication of the Divine and the human; its ideal ap- 
proaches the ideal of Christianity, the perfect love 
that loses self to find it in the self of God. 



THE CLOSE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 281 

*^^For thousands of years the same Architect has 
directed the work/^ says Hegel, ^'^and that Architect 
is the one living mind of which the nature is thought 
and self -consciousness/^ The content of religion and 
philosophy is one ; faith and knowledge, '' God^s revela- 
tion to man, and man's discovery of God/' coincide 
ultimately. 

Greek philosophy manifests the immanence of the 
divine in human reason ; it is the seeking and the 
finding amid finite error and imperfection of the 
Infinite. '' It was the teacher of the Middle Ages/' 
says Zeller ; ^^the new time began under its guidance; 
and whenever the independent modern mind needs a 
fresh stimulus to activity, it goes back gladly to its 
inexhaustible sources. Our perceptions have widened, 
our moral and metaphysical concepts have changed, 
our science has investigated more thoroughly the 
realm of nature and of spirit, than the Hellenic ; 
but the clearness of glance, the unity of philosophic 
character, the complete surrender of individuals to 
their principles, which for the most part character- 
ize the masters of ancient philosophy, will always 
command admiring wonder and emulation. Kegarded 
as a whole, the history of Greek philosophy, in its 
uniform and regular development, in the definiteness 
with which each school comprehends its especial 
principle, in the purity with which it is worked out, 
is a source of delight. To hold this great appearance 
vitally in the consciousness of the present, to nourish 
the spirit of our time with the fruits of the friendly 



282 A STUDY OF GKEEK PHILOSOPHY. 

Hellenic spirit^ is one of the most beautiful and grate- 
ful problems of the science of history/^ 



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